A six meter long, 2.4 tons model of the final design of the autonomous and fully electric container vessel Yara Birkeland was revealed as testing commenced at SINTEF Ocean’s 80 metre test tank facility in Trondheim September 28th 2017. It was also revealed yesterday that ENOVA, a Norwegian government enterprise responsible for promotion of environmentally friendly production and consumption of energy will support the project with a NOK 133 million financial contribution.
As announced May 9th 2017, Yara and KONGSBERG have partnered to build the world’s first autonomous and fully electric container vessel. “Yara Birkeland”, named after Yara’s founder Kristian Birkeland, will enable a reduction of 40,000 road journey’s from Yara’s Porsgrunn fertiliser plant in southern Norway to the ports of Brevik and Larvik, significantly reducing local NOx and CO2 emissions produced by haulage trucks. The vessel will be delivered and begin first tests and operations early 2019, and conduct fully autonomous operations in 2020.
Following the announcement in May, the vessel has been designed at Norwegian design and engineering company Marin Teknikk. A cutting edge six meter long and 2.4 tons model of the final design using technology destined for the real ship, including a fully working thruster system from KONGSBERG, will now undergo comprehensive testing at SINTEF Ocean before construction of the full-scale vessel starts. The decision of where the vessel is to be built will be decided and disclosed by the end of 2017. (Source: Konsberg)