The first self-propelled electric container ship Yara Birkeland has completed its maiden voyage in the Oslo Fjord. A two-year test phase of the technology is now beginning before the ship is to be certified.


The E-container ship was announced by the fertilizer manufacturer Yara in 2017 . As early as the end of 2018, Birkeland was to handle the equivalent of 40,000 truck journeys between the fertilizer production facility in Porsgrunn in southern Norway and Brevik for onward transport in order to relieve freight traffic on the road.

Yara partner Kongsberg does not provide any information on the reasons for the delay until the end of 2021 in the announcement on the maiden voyage. Accordingly, commercial transport operations should start in 2022, but will initially be controlled manually. During the two-year test phase, the ship's self-propelled technology is to be tested and later certified.

The Yara Birkeland has a purely electric drive (2x 900kW Azipull pods and 2x 700kW tunnel thrusters), which draws its energy from a 7 MWh electricity storage unit from Leclanché . The 80 meter long and 15 meter wide ship can transport up to 120 20-foot containers per trip.