Norway’s Ferry Operator Norled May Have Saved Cash & Employees by Skipping Hydrogen

Help CleanTechnica’s work via a Substack subscription or on Stripe.

Norled, considered one of Norway’s largest greatest recognized ferry operators, has misplaced a few billion kroner, about €85 million, in two years. The corporate is now reducing workers, together with greater than a dozen land-based positions, to attempt to regular its funds. These losses didn’t come from a collapse in ridership or mismanagement of its core enterprise. They got here largely from a choice to spend closely on hydrogen ferries when the remainder of Norway’s ferry community was quietly proving that batteries had been the higher alternative.

Norled’s MF Hydra is the world’s first liquid hydrogen ferry, put into service in March 2023. It was launched to world consideration, celebrated as proof that zero-emission delivery was coming into a brand new period. The ferry runs the quick Hjelmeland–Nesvik–Skipavik route, a 15 to twenty minute crossing typical of Norway’s community. However the place the remainder of the nation electrified these routes with easy shore-charging and hydroelectric energy, with 70 of Norway’s 200 or so ferries already battery electrical, Norled guess on hydrogen. The corporate ordered a customized vessel with cryogenic storage tanks, gas cells, and a liquid hydrogen bunkering system. It then signed a provide take care of Linde to truck liquid hydrogen 1,300 km from Germany to the port each few weeks. The engineering is first rate, however the economics are punishing.

The MF Hydra price about €29 million to construct. That’s roughly €9 million greater than a contemporary battery-electric ferry of the identical dimension, corresponding to its sister vessel MF Nesvik, which runs on the identical route. A diesel ferry with related capability would price about €14 million. Even the shore tools tells the identical story. The MF Nesvik’s charging stations, buffer batteries, and grid connection on each ends of the route price round €2–6 million in complete. The MF Hydra’s truck-to-ship liquid hydrogen bunkering setup price about €1 million for hoses, pumps, and venting techniques, however would have price 5 to 10 occasions extra if it had been constructed as a everlasting terminal. Hydrogen was speculated to be the innovative. In observe, it’s a fragile, high-maintenance chain of cryogenics, logistics, and gas cell integration that burns via cash each week it operates.

Hydrogen’s vitality inefficiency is the subsequent drawback. The MF Hydra consumes about 4 tons of liquid hydrogen each two weeks, roughly 104 tons a yr. On the delivered price of €13–14 per kilogram, which incorporates manufacturing, liquefaction, trucking, and losses, the ferry’s gas invoice reaches about €1.4 million per yr. The identical route powered by batteries would want about 1.1–1.3 GWh of electrical energy yearly. At Norway’s industrial charges of €0.045–0.09 per kWh, that vitality prices lower than €100,000 per yr. Even diesel seems to be good by comparability. A diesel ferry on this route would burn about 350,000–400,000 liters per yr, at a wholesale worth close to €1 per liter. That’s a gas invoice of about €350,000–400,000, or one quarter of what Hydra spends on hydrogen.

Once I calculated the well-to-wake emissions for the MF Hydra in my earlier evaluation, the numbers made the argument for hydrogen collapse below its personal weight. The ferry’s liquid hydrogen is trucked roughly 1,300 km from Germany each two weeks, with diesel tankers alone releasing about 275 tons of CO₂ annually. Add liquefaction losses, grid emissions from German electrical energy, and hydrogen leakage, and the entire rises to between 1,800 and a couple of,100 tons of CO₂ equal yearly. A diesel ferry of the identical dimension on the identical route would emit about 900 tons per yr, solely half as a lot. The battery-electric ferry working alongside Hydra, powered by Norway’s near-zero-carbon hydroelectric grid, emits about 50 tons per yr. In different phrases, the world’s first hydrogen ferry is producing roughly twice the emissions of the diesel vessel it was meant to switch, and forty occasions greater than its electrical twin.

The associated fee distinction is so giant that reverting to diesel on the MF Hydra’s route would save sufficient cash to maintain all of the workers positions Norled is planning to chop, and scale back Norled’s CO2e emissions as properly. Changing Hydra with one other battery-electric ferry would save much more, sufficient to each shield these jobs and repay the price of the brand new ferry inside a number of years of operation, to not point out dropping Norled’s CO2e emissions even additional.

The issue shouldn’t be that Norled lacks ability or dedication. Norway’s ferry trade is a world chief in maritime decarbonization. The MF Ampere confirmed in 2015 that short-haul battery ferries might minimize emissions and working prices on the identical time. Dozens of different operators adopted with related designs. Norled, searching for to remain forward of the pack, selected hydrogen to distinguish itself. It achieved the excellence of constructing the primary liquid hydrogen ferry however delivered a expertise that can’t compete on price, emissions or practicality.

In concept, hydrogen ought to shine on routes the place batteries can not maintain sufficient cost for the required distance or turnaround time, though with the huge absolutely electrical ferries within the water or on order, the potential routes are dwindling quick. The Hydra route is the other. It’s quick, frequent, and immediately linked to Norway’s hydroelectric grid. The battery ferry working beside Hydra, MF Nesvik, proves what is feasible when design matches actuality. It fees from clear electrical energy, runs quietly, wants little upkeep, and prices nearly nothing to refuel. The distinction between the 2 ferries is a residing experiment in what works and what doesn’t.

Norled’s complete hydrogen funding is estimated at about €33–45 million, together with the ferry, bunkering setup, engineering contracts, and the separate Finnøy hydrogen challenge that by no means reached full operation. That’s roughly half of the corporate’s complete losses over the previous two years. Additionally it is cash that might have saved its workforce intact or financed two extra battery-electric ferries. As an alternative, these funds have been absorbed by a single prototype that proves an costly level. Innovation with out financial grounding shouldn’t be technique. It’s playing with payroll.

It will be higher for Norled to confess that the experiment has run its course. The MF Hydra has achieved its job as an indication of what liquid hydrogen propulsion can do. It doesn’t have to hold working as a every day loss maker. Shutting down the hydrogen system, reverting the vessel to diesel, or changing it with one other battery-electric ferry would unencumber over one million euros annually. These financial savings might protect workers, assist upkeep throughout the fleet, and restore the corporate’s stability sheet. Hydrogen for vitality can return to analysis applications, check stands, and college labs, and hydrogen advocates can deal with the place they need to have been trying within the first place, industrial feedstocks.

The lesson from Hydra is evident. Electrical energy delivered on to a battery is way cheaper and less complicated than electrical energy that’s transformed into hydrogen, liquefied and turned again into electrical energy. Norway has the cleanest grid on this planet. Its ferries ought to use it immediately. Norled has already constructed that future with MF Nesvik. Holding MF Hydra operating on hydrogen solely drags the corporate additional into debt and forces it to chop the folks it nonetheless wants. A sensible operator would finish the hydrogen experiment, hold the workers, and double down on the electrical path that’s already paying off.