46 n TRANSPORT July/August 2025 www.drivesncontrols.com AC drives take to the high seas The Finnish Navy is building four multi-role corvettes which will be powered by liquid-cooled AC drives. The Pohjanmaa-class corvettes, part of the Finnish Defence Squadron 2020 project, are capable of executing naval missions at sea throughout the year. The corvettes have been designed for the conditions of the Baltic Sea as well as international operations. They are being built at Rauma Marine Constructions’ shipyard in Rauma, Finland, and are due to be completed by 2029. Danfoss Drives is supplying the vessels’ AC drives, which have been engineered to withstand the demanding naval environment as well as complying with stringent requirements for environmental resilience, shock resistance, electromagnetic compatibility, specified in Nato and Finnish Navy standards. “Delivering our megawatt-class, liquidcooled AC drives from the Danfoss iC7 product series for Finland’s new Squadron 2020 corvettes is a milestone for Danfoss Drives,” says the company’s president, Mika Kulju. Expanding fleet The Finnish corvettes are part of a growing fleet of vessels incorporating VSDs. The same drives have been used for the past four years as part of a hybrid propulsion system on board a ferry that plies a route between Finland and Sweden. The drives on the Aurora Botnia ferry manage power distribution from its LNGfuelled main generators to two 6MW propeller motors and a 2MWh battery bank. This system controls a total of 35MW. The ferry was built at the same shipyard as the corvettes. Another ferry using similar drives is the newly-launched Nerthus, which has an allelectric propulsion system and can carry up to 188 cars and 600 passengers on an 17km crossing between two Danish islands. It has four steerable thrusters powered by permanent magnet motors. Normally, it will run on battery power, but has a biofuelpowered backup generator to provide extra flexibility. As well as supplying components for the ferry’s electric drivetrain, Danfoss also provided parts for the shoreside charging infrastructure. The 117m-long Nerthus is Electrical power is being used increasingly for vessels ranging from navel corvettes to ferries and tugboats. These ships are using specially adapted versions of industrial VSDs, including active front-ends. The new Nerthus e-ferry is propelled by four steerable electric thrusters
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