Battery company AYK Energy reports that ro-pax operator Wasaline’s vessel ‘Aurora Botnia’ is now back in service with the largest retrofit battery installation to date, following an upgrade at Turku Repair Yard in Finland.
The new 10.4MWh AYK Pisces+ battery system is nearly five times as powerful as the previous 2.2MWh system on the hybrid-electric Aurora Botnia. This brings the total energy storage capacity to 12.6MWh. The previous biggest marine battery retrofit was on the Aida Prima cruise ship and this latest contract exceeds that by about 500kWh.
The new system is expected to cut emissions on the green corridor route between Vaasa in Finland and Umeå in Sweden. The upgrade was started during normal operation and finalised at the Turku Repair yard. The vessel is now back in service and will operate all year round. Aurora Botnia operates the battery system in combination with Wärtsilä dual-fuel LNG/LBG engines.
AYK founder Chris Kruger said: “AYK is delighted to undertake this ground-breaking upgrade for Wasaline. Our companies share a passion for innovation and decarbonization. It is especially pleasing for AYK to deliver this project on time and on budget. The time for electric vessels has come. Marine battery technology is improving so fast with superior levels of energy density, safety and cost savings. The Aurora Botnia retrofit shows what is possible. Hybrid ships have a very big future, not least because the ROI is so fast. Battery systems can pay for themselves within just a few years in fuel savings.”
From the initial planning, Wasaline set a target of achieving fully carbon-neutral operations by 2030, but they achieved this in 2025 following the use of biogas.
Peter Ståhlberg, MD Wasaline, said: “The Vaasa-Umeå route is the first international green shipping corridor in operation. There’s growing demand for environmentally friendly transport in Europe. The entire transport chain can be carbon-neutral today. Expanding our battery capacity with AYK Energy is a major step that allows us to make our vessel even more sustainable. Our collaboration with Finland’s and the region’s energy clusters makes innovative solutions like this possible.”
The latest delivery comes as AYK is seeing a surge in demand for its batteries across the maritime industry, with the manufacturer supplying cruise ships, icebreakers, ferries, workboats and large container vessels as part of their power mix. In the last year, AYK has successfully installed some of the biggest marine battery systems ever built, including two 12MWh Orion+ batteries for Brittany Ferries’ hybrid-electric vessels Guillaume de Normandie and sister ship Saint-Malo. AYK further struck a deal to supply a 6 MWh battery for the world’s first battery-methanol tug for Svitzer.
Image: AYK battery room on ‘Aurora Botnia’ (source: AYK Energy)
