Calais and Dunkirk ports strive for all-electric ferry-crossings

The ports of Calais and Dunkirk are preparing new connections to allow battery-powered ferries to charge in the time it takes to unload and load cross-Channel passengers.

The port of Calais signed a deal in January promising to invest €6.7million with RTE (Réseau de Transport d’Electricité) for a 100MW supply to quays.

Benoît Rochet, the port’s managing director, said: “Getting a secure high-tension line from RTE is a cornerstone of the decarbonisation of the Calais-Dover ferry line. We will be working over the next few years to design infrastructure to transform and distribute the energy and make sure it can be connected to ferries.”

He added that the supply of electricity at rates sufficient to recharge a ship’s batteries in a short time did not exist anywhere else in the world, making Calais a pioneer.

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The goal is to deliver between 20MW and 30MW of power to a ship in less than 45 minutes and is part of a project to ensure ferries using the port are carbon neutral by 2035. The power is likely to come from the Gravelines nuclear power station, to the north of Dunkirk.

At the port of Dunkirk, deputy managing director Daniel Deschodt told The Connexion that work was advanced for the installation of electric plugs, but he did not yet know what they would look like for passengers boarding the ships.

“I imagine it will be mainly underground, like the electricity infrastructure to run our container cranes,” he said.

“Passengers might just see a container on the quayside where the cables go.”

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Cutting CO₂ emissions

P&O Ferries already has two new-generation hybrid ships, costing a total of €260million, on the Calais-Dover route, allowing diesel motors to be switched off in favour of electric power when docking and leaving harbour. P&O says this cuts CO₂ emissions by 40%.

The ships are designed so that more batteries can be added when it is possible to charge them fast and reliably.

Brittany Ferries is replacing its diesel-powered ship Bretagne, used for many years on the Saint Malo-Portsmouth run, with a gas-electric hybrid called Saint-Malo. It will use electric-only power from 12MW of batteries to dock and leave port and can run on electric power for an hour. 

Barfleur, on the Cherbourg to Poole route, may also be replaced.