Damen Shipyards Group says it has reached a major milestone in the construction of its first fully electric Reversed Stern Drive tug. The shipbuilder is constructing the RSD-E Tug 2513, named Sparky, for New Zealand’s Ports of Auckland. Recently, Damen Song Cam Shipyard in Vietnam installed the tug’s batteries.
This involved the installation of some 2,240 batteries, totaling 2,784kWh. With this, Sparky will carry out two or more berthing/unberthing operations with up to 70 tons bollard pull on a single charge, and it will take just two hours for the tug to recharge to its full capacity. For redundancy purposes, the batteries are arranged in strings. If one battery in a string were to fail, the others would simply carry on the work.
Ports of Auckland placed the order with Damen in August 2019 and the port’s intention is to be fully zero emissions by 2040. To achieve this, they needed a zero-emission tug. Work continues on Sparky, and Damen anticipates delivery by end of this year.