Echandia, the Sweden-headquartered maritime battery systems supplier, has announced it will provide its Echandia Core battery system for a new 78-metre hybrid catamaran being built by Incat in Tasmania, Australia. The order represents Echandia’s first delivery to Incat, which builds high-speed aluminium ferries.

The vessel is designed to carry up to 650 passengers and 120 cars at a maximum speed of 28 knots. According to Echandia, it can operate in fully electric, hybrid, or generator-only modes, enabling zero-emission operation on short crossings and in emission-control zones while maintaining range on longer routes. The vessel is expected to be available for bareboat or time charter from January 2027.

Stewart Wells, chief technical officer at Incat, explained: “The vessel has been conceived as part of a series with flexibility and modularity as a high priority to ensure the vessels can serve many applications over its design life. We need a battery system that can handle both high power demands and frequent charging cycles across different routes. Echandia Core gives us exactly that.”

Echandia Core is built on lithium titanate oxide (LTO) chemistry, which the company says experiences minimal degradation over time. This characteristic is designed to allow battery capacity to be expanded at a later stage without a performance mismatch between existing and new modules.

Felix Backgård, head of technical sales at Echandia, commented: “A vessel built with this flexibility in mind needs a battery system that keeps future options open. Because LTO chemistry exhibits minimal degradation over time, capacity can later be expanded without a performance mismatch between old and new modules. Echandia Core is designed for that full lifecycle flexibility.”

Echandia says the Core system was developed specifically to address the higher initial investment that has historically limited broader LTO adoption in maritime applications, adding that it delivers a 30% lower upfront cost and a 30% smaller footprint compared with its previous battery system, while retaining the safety and reliability characteristics associated with LTO technology.

Headquartered in Sweden, Echandia has offices in North America, the UK, Singapore, China and Denmark.