Kongsberg and Yara to build world's first autonomous, all-electric ship

Consortium member Kongsberg Maritime have entered into a partnership with agriculture and environmental solutions provider Yara, to build the world's first autonomous, all electric, zero emissions container ship.  Operation of the "Yara Birkeland" is planned to start in the latter half of 2018, shipping products from Yara's Porsgrunn production plant to Brevik and Larvik in Norway.

The vessel, which will be the world's first fully electric container feeder, will reduce NOx and CO2 emissions and improve road safety by removing up to 40,000 truck journeys in populated urban areas.  Yara Birkeland will initially operate as a manned vessel, moving to remote operation in 2019 and expected to be capable of performing fully autonomous operations from 2020. 

Consortium member Kongsberg is responsible for development and delivery of all key enabling technologies on Yara Birkeland including the sensors and integration required for remote and autonomous operations, in addition to the electric drive, battery and propulsion control systems.

As a leading global maritime technology company, Kongsberg's integrated control and monitoring systems are already capable of providing technology for remote and unmanned operations.  Yara Birkeland will benefit from competence and technologies developed across Kongsberg.

For further information on the ‘YARA Birkeland’ please visit Kongsberg. 

Kongsberg Maritime’s role in the MFDevCo consortium is to provide ‘best in class’ proven remote control and monitoring technology for normally unattended production facilities.