The Spirit of British Columbia will now operate on natural gas. (Photo Credit: BC Ferries).
BC Ferries’ Spirit of British Columbia is returning to service Wednesday after being converted to operate on natural gas.
The ferry is one of the organization’s largest vessel. It is the first of two vessels to be converted to natural gas.
The Spirit of Vancouver Island will be upgraded from fall 2018 to spring 2019. BC Ferries said it expects to reduce CO2 emissions by 12,500 tonnes annually, the equivalent of taking approximately 2,500 vehicles off the road per year by using natural gas to fuel the two Spirit Class vessels. Fuel costs for the ships are also expected to go down.
According to BC Ferries, the Spirit of British Columbia is the first vessel in the world to refuel liquefied natural gas via delivery on a fully enclosed vehicle deck. The new Salish Class vessels introduced last year were the first in the world to fuel liquefied natural gas on an open vehicle deck via delivery truck. The natural gas is provided by FortisBC and BC Ferries said it saved customers more than $100 million in infrastructure costs.
“The Spirit of British Columbia returns to service with clean technology that reduces both our environmental footprint and cost of operations,” said Mark Collins, BC Ferries’ president and CEO said in the statement.
“The two Spirit Class vessels consume approximately 16 per cent of our fuel annually. The conversion of our two largest ships in the fleet, along with the introduction of our three new natural gas-fuelled Salish Class vessels last year, goes a long way to improving the sustainability of our operations and affordability for ferry users.”
Other upgrades on the Spirit of British Columbia include:
- Renewal of navigation equipment,
- Renewal of propulsion equipment components including gearboxes, rudders, steering system, bow thrusters, propeller blades, LED lighting
- Air conditioning equipment upgrade
- Upgrade of four marine evacuation systems
- New carpeting
- New furniture upholstery
- New table tops
- Refurbishment of all public washrooms
- Additional washroom on Deck Five
- New Arbutus coffee bar on Deck Six
- Doubling of the size of Passages onboard retail store
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