The Electric Seaway (TES)

The UK has a beautiful coastline that is integral to many communities but it also provides unique opportunities to engage with the water for commercial and leisure activities. The south coast of the UK has responded to the shift in maritime expectations over the past few years with many new businesses and technology developments for clean and green vessels. The Electric Seaway will provide a charging infrastructure network along the south coast to accelerate the transition to clean maritime, delivering 10 charging installations which will be demonstrated throughout June 2025. The sites deployed will include solutions for where grid capacity challenges exist, through utilising battery storage, chargers connected to existing marina power and a mobile battery solution for seasonal sites/events. The network will not only offer a blueprint for future networks but also provide much needed clarity for the whole supply chain. It will offer a standardised approach to e-charging in current and establish a plan for delivering charging technology, helping to overcome the major barrier of limited grid capacity and thus level up infrastructure provision. Chargers installed will be able to provide increased power supply at 10 sites of up to 75 kW, including sites where battery energy storage will be installed to combat limited grid capacity. A full demonstration of all sites will be run for 4 weeks from June 1st 2025. The World's first Electric Seaway will offer a mix of solutions to meet locations current and future needs, and this will deliver a network of charging, for commercial and recreational vessels. With many ports and harbours already looking at e-vessels for their own operational fleets and private owners wanting to reduce emissions in an environment they enjoy. Aqua superPower will bring together this consortium to deliver the network in two years with the support of Innovate UK and DfT. The Electric Seaway will be an essential part of the sector's ability to develop, build and retrofit vessels incorporating clean propulsion options using batteries with a significant shift forward in a reduction of emissions. Aqua will be supported by the members of the UK Harbour Masters' Association, site locations for energy storage systems in BCP Council and South Hams District Council with leading industry partners in ZPN Energy and across the whole Seaway the expertise from the University of Plymouth ensure environmental impacts and carbon reduction are monitored and fed back to policy makers for future planning.