Exploring the cost and emissions impacts, feasibility and scalability of battery electric ships

Hee Seung Moon (), Won Young Park (), Thomas Hendrickson, Amol Phadke and Natalie Popovich
Additional contact information
Hee Seung Moon: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Won Young Park: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Thomas Hendrickson: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Amol Phadke: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Natalie Popovich: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Nature Energy, 2025, vol. 10, issue 1, 41-54

Abstract: Abstract The United States’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction goals, along with targets set by the International Maritime Organization, create an opportunity for battery electric shipping. In this study, we model life-cycle costs and GHG emissions from shipping electrification, leveraging ship activity datasets from across the United States in 2021. We estimate that retrofitting 6,323 domestic ships under 1,000 gross tonnage to battery electric vessels would reduce US domestic shipping GHG emissions by up to 73% by 2035 from 2022 levels. By 2035, electrifying up to 85% of these ships could become cost effective versus internal combustion engine ships if they cover 99% of annual trips and charge from a deeply decarbonized grid. We find that charging demands from electrifying these ships could be concentrated at just 20 of 150 major ports nationwide. This study demonstrates that retrofitting to battery electric vessels has economic potential and could significantly accelerate GHG emission reductions.

Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-024-01655-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natene:v:10:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41560-024-01655-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nenergy/

DOI: 10.1038/s41560-024-01655-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Energy is currently edited by Fouad Khan

More articles in Nature Energy from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().