First of Its Kind

摘要

In 2018, Navtek, our naval design and engineering company located in Istanbul, Turkey, began a study on the development of a fully electrical, coastal dry cargo ship. Everything checked out except the battery technology: current technology did not allow the design of a feasible ship that could be recharged and sail to acceptable distances and conduct daily heavy-duty operations. Still, the study showed us that, using batteries as the source of main propulsion power in high-powered marine vehicles for a short sail time and endurance is feasible. When the battery technology was ready to be used as a source of main propulsion power in high power-demand marine vehicles, we went through an intensive period of R&D studies, then delivered the world's first all-electric tugboat, which we call ZEETUG (zero emission electric tugboat). The project started in 2018 with a request from one of our long-term clients, for a smaller boat to replace their existing diesel-driven boats, but with greater power. Additionally, they were expecting a more environmentally friendly design solution than the existing hybrid technology, to fulfil their related obligations to the government to help reduce emissions to an even greater degree than they had already done.