Finnlines, a shipping operator for freight and passenger services in the Baltic Sea, the North Sea and the Bay of Biscay, has new green lane transportation services that it says will reduce shipping emissions by up to 90%.
Finnlines has created a fully electric shipping route between Naantali Finland, and Kapellskär Sweden. This route will be operated by Finnlines’ newest hybrid ro-pax ships Finnsirius and Finncanopus.
The ships’ 5 MWh batteries are charged with onshore power while at berth, and the energy is used at sea to replace fossil fuels, thus enabling green transportation for certain freight units.
The other Green Lane option uses biofuels taken from renewable sources. The service will be available on short-sea shipping routes, i.e. Naantali–Kapellskär, Malmö Sweden and Travemünde Germany, Malmö and Świnoujście Poland, and Hanko Finland and Gdynia Poland.
The company said use of biofuels can reduce well-to-wake greenhouse gas emissions of transport by up to 90% compared with conventional fossil fuels. 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.
”We want to offer our customers concrete solutions to help them achieve their decarbonisation targets,” said Merja Kallio-Mannila, Commercial Director at Finnlines. “Both solutions ensure low emissions.”
The company has also ordered three new methanol-powered vessels, which are expected to enter the route between Helsinki and Travemünde in 2028-2029.
”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,” said says Thomas Doepel, President and CEO at Finnlines. These new and previous investments will enable us to offer our customers fossil-free freight transportation.”
