ACEL sees opportunities in retrofit market

Norway’s ACEL Group contracted Finnish power electronics specialist The Switch, which is part of the BEMAC Group, to supply its single drives as part of the upgrade to Island Frontier, which was built in 2003.

ACEL’s own subsidiary, Haf Power Solutions (HPS), will install and commission the electrical systems in line with its core vessel lifecycle management business.

“We have a long relationship with Island Offshore and were tasked with a complete overhaul of the Island Frontier’s electrical systems,” said HPS CEO Bengt-Olav Berntsen. “It was their founding vessel, but after 20 years of successful operation, the cost of maintaining obsolete electrical systems for another 20 years would have been far too high.”

Originally HPS planned to retain the vessel’s thruster and propulsion drives and extend their lifetime by replacing broken internal components, however it soon became apparent this was only a five-year solution, after which period of time replacement parts might be difficult to find, Berntsen said.

“So we decided to replace them entirely with new parallel single drives designed for AC distribution and supplied by The Switch,” he said.

Because The Switch’s drives have similar dimensions to the old ones, space was not an issue.

Retrofit and electrification

There are clear signs of a trend towards retrofit rather than newbuild, a topic Maritime Journal looked at in a recent Get Set for Workboat 2050 webinar that you can watch here.

HPS is placing itself at the forefront of this market, it says, aligning itself with The Switch in doing so, Berntsen says.

It says the Island Offshore vessel Island Condor is having new drives installed with a new battery package as it undergoes conversion from a platform supply vessel (PSV) to an offshore construction vessel (OSV). The vessel will be sliced in half with a new construction module added in the middle.

HPS is also working on a DC Hub solution for the ferry market, which is also using The Switch, for instance with the conversion of HPS worked previously with The Switch on the conversion of the Torghatten Nord-owned ferry Malangen from diesel electric to battery electric in 2023, which included a partial DC circuit solution. “We’ve also worked on a fishing trawler for a South American owner, where we completely overhauled the energy system and installed The Switch drives to extend its lifetime and make it profitable in a new market,” Berntsen said, adding that he believes electrification will be vital for energy efficiency.

“Electricity is by far the best energy conveyor – and batteries, energy conversion and DC systems will become increasingly important marine solutions,” he said. “DC distribution is also the best way to integrate different power sources in local ship grids. Ironically, all ships used DC up to the 1960s when AC became the norm, so with DC we are going back to the future.”