Still, Tallink continued on its sustainability journey despite all the challenges. Today, the company is a pioneer in shipping green solutions and technologies in the region’s maritime sector, piloting many new solutions that others later adopt in the industry.
Throughout recent years, Tallink has partnered with ABB to find even more energy-efficient and sustainable solutions for their already environmentally friendly LNG-operated shuttle vessels. In the late autumn of 2022, Tallink's newest, most innovative, and technologically advanced shuttle ferry, MyStar, started to operate on the Tallinn-Helsinki route.
MyStar represents the next generation of passenger ferries, where efficiency and green solutions are integral to every process and function on board. ABB has produced MyStar’s electrical switchboards, shore power equipment, main electrical engines, and generators. MyStar’s five generators have all been manufactured at ABB’s Estonian motors and generators factory. ABB's optimization software OCTOPUS is also used on MyStar to increase energy saving and efficiency. The calculations have shown that OCTOPUS software can reduce the annual fuel consumption of shuttle ferries by almost 4 percent.
ABB's Marine & Ports division's shore power connection technology allows Tallink's shuttles to connect to the local onshore power grid and, thanks to this, minimize emissions during longer port stays. Using the shore power equipment alone during longer and overnight port stays helps reduce MyStar's CO2 emissions by a whopping 1344 tons annually.
In the face of innovative solutions developed and applied together with ABB, Tallink Grupp has pledged to reduce the absolute emissions of the company’s vessels by 2% annually and to increase the vessels’ energy efficiency by 2% annually. The International Maritime Organisation has set a goal for global shipping companies to reduce their emissions by 50% by 2030 compared to the emissions of the baseline year 2008. Tallink Grupp’s vessels' CO2 emissions have already been reduced by 51.9% compared to 2009, thanks to different investments, new solutions, and technologies.
