The ferry & ro-ro line has introduced a new concept of shipping, both for freight & passengers, who can now choose to sail fully electric or with biofuel in place of fossil bunker.
The 100% electricity-powered cargo shipments are available between Naantali and Kapellskär, with the crossing's two 5.0MWh cruise ferries green-charged while connected to onshore power supply in the Finnish and Swedish seaports.
"Our utmost goal is to reduce emissions and we are already seeing concrete results. With the introduction of our new vessels, Finnsirius and Finncanopus, we have entered the hybrid era and can now offer our customers even more efficient and sustainable sea transport services. Although the cargo capacity of the vessels operating on the Naantali-Kapellskär route has increased significantly, yet absolute carbon dioxide emissions per nautical mile have decreased by 22%," underscored Antonio Raimo, Line Manager at Finnlines.
The biofuel Green Lane option for freight is available on the Naantali-Kapellskär, Malmö-Travemünde, Malmö-Świnoujście, and Hanko-Gdynia services. "Use of biofuels [derived from renewable sources] can reduce well-to-wake greenhouse gas emissions of transport by up to 90% compared with conventional fossil fuels," Finnlines highlighted in a press release.
The company's Commercial Director, Merja Kallio-Mannila, added, "We want to offer our customers concrete solutions to help them achieve their decarbonisation targets. Both solutions ensure low emissions; for example, using biofuel can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 700kg per trailer on the Hanko-Gdynia route."
Green Lane is also available for passengers on the Naantali-Långnäs-Kapellskär, Helsinki-Travemünde, Malmö-Travemünde, and Malmö-Świnoujście crossings. "If passengers choose this option, Finnlines will consume renewable biofuels to replace the corresponding volume of fossil fuels and the emissions per passenger on the route will decline," the company said.
"In April, we announced of a new investment programme, which consists of three methanol-powered ro-pax vessels to enter the route between Finland and Germany. These new and previous investments [20 purchased & ordered vessels over two decades at the expense of €2.0 billion] will enable us to offer our customers fossil-free freight transportation. This has raised great interest and we are confident that the demand will grow in the future," commented Thomas Doepel, Finnlines' President & CEO.
Photo: Finnlines