in Norway, aboard the largest electric ferry in the world

In appearance, it has everything of the traditional ship. But when you listen, you notice the difference. “It’s so quiet, calm. On a daily basis, normally, I can even hear what I’m thinking. Today it’s windy, so you can hear it blowing. But on calm days, I can go out through the door on the side of the deck and I can listen to the water on the hull as we cut through the sea. It almost feels like I’m on a sailboat sometimes”, says Svein Erik Waskaas, captain of the Basto Electric.

This boat connects the towns of Horten and Moss, Norway’s busiest shipping line. Nearly four million passengers board this 143-meter-long, 21-meter-wide machine each year, which weighs nearly 2,000 tons when empty.

48 tonnes of batteries connected at each stopover

To operate the boat, you just have to plug it in for 10 to 13 minutes at each stopover, which allows it to have the 45 minutes of autonomy necessary for the crossing. In the holds, 48 ​​tons of batteries are stored in fireproof fabric located in cabinets under video surveillance, to avoid the risk of fire. “The worst thing that can happen on board is for a fire to break out in one of the batteries. And there, it is absolutely impossible to fight against the fire. We must then spray with as much water as possible to cool them and wait to dock so that the firefighters come to help us on board. But the fire can last for hours“, assures Gjermund Hansen, chief engineer of the ship.

Excerpt from “Norway, green paradise?”, broadcast in “We, the Europeans” on February 9, 2023.

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