Speeding up the Transition to Partly (Hybrid) or Fully Electric Waterborne Transportation through Education and Skills Upgrading

In response to the current development towards electric waterborne transportation, this paper introduces the consequent gap in maritime education. Although the transition is only slowly progressing, the first crew members have already started operating fully electric vessels, but without any battery-specific training or certification. In this paper, the magnitude and type of information required in the transition is assessed by comparing existing maritime educational standards with battery-specific regulations. From this comparison three focal areas are identified; safety operation behavior, electrical engineering skills and overcoming myths and misunderstandings. The paper analyzes how education can best be composed to speed up the transition to electric waterborne transportation through a case study based on the experiences from the E-ferry project and the educational strategy of the World’s first pilot courses offered by a renowned Danish maritime academy. The paper concludes by recommending a range of myths that a course concept should help put to rest.