Boat Electrification Is a Climate and Health Win. Making the Switch Isn’t Easy.

Boat electrification could help minimize climate-warming emissions at sea, but projects are struggling to take off, experts say.

Anyone who has visited a port or harbor knows that it can be an overwhelmingly sensory experience—from the pungent tang of diesel or gas exhaust to the deafening rumble of a boat’s outboard motor engine. But these engines and their emissions can have some risky consequences, fueling both global warming and health problems. 

They’re also just plain annoying, according to Maine local and boater Nick Planson. 

“Imagine you’re out on an oyster farm on a beautiful bay in Maine … but all day long, you’re standing next to this loud generator, and the neighbors across the bay don’t like it, the workers don’t like it,” he told me. “It’s hard to hear each other, and you’re spending lots of time schlepping gasoline around.” 

Planson is among those working on a solution. The founder and CEO of the startup Shred Electric, he and his team are developing boats equipped with electric, rechargeable outboard motors geared toward shellfish farmers and small boat users. 

A small but growing cadre of businesses, nonprofits and governments around the world are trying to electrify working waterfronts and ferries to minimize their emissions. But with high upfront costs and unique engineering challenges, these projects face some steep hurdles preventing them from really setting sail, experts say.  

Early Adopters: The Gulf of Maine hosts some of the most productive fisheries in the United States. However, it’s also one of the fastest-warming bodies of water in the world, heating up more quickly than 99 percent of the ocean between 2004 to 2016. This climate impact has had cascading effects on New England’s working waterfronts, causing sea level rise, worsening flooding and driving mass die-offs of key species such as lobster and oyster, according to a 2020 federal report. 

Electric boats could help workers avoid contributing to their fisheries’ demise, said Lia Morris, the senior community development officer at the nonprofit Island Institute. In recent years, the group has helped businesses fund and build around two dozen electric boats, including one developed by Planson’s company. Morris said it is key to get a small contingent of electric boats on the water for people to see how they work, especially because the initiative is still in its early stages.

“We feel pretty strongly, based on the small data pool that we have, that this is a smart climate solution,” she told me. 

Boat electrification is slowly catching on in regions beyond Maine. In Nova Scotia, the Membertou First Nation is working with boating firms to develop the country’s first electric lobster fishing vessel, SeafoodSource reports. Meanwhile, states across the U.S., including Washington, New York and California—as well as abroad in Amsterdam and London—are increasingly developing electric or hybrid ferry boats and hydrofoils for public transportation. 

Last year, my colleague Phil McKenna covered an ongoing effort in Michigan to convert the coal-powered S.S. Badger, a 410-foot freight and passenger ferry that crosses Lake Michigan each summer, to a more sustainably powered system. The company that owns it is exploring several technologies, including battery-powered electric motors and diesel-electric hybrid power paired with carbon capture for the CO2 released from burning diesel.

Choppy Seas: Experts say the boat electrification push is slowgoing, and still in its early stages due to some significant challenges. The main hurdle? Its price tag. 

For example, Washington state, which operates the largest passenger ferry system in the country, kickstarted in 2020 what is now a $6 billion electrification program that aims to convert its entire fleet—currently 21 ferries—to diesel-electric hybrid power by 2040. Since the state launched its first hybrid ferry in July, it’s been pulled from service three times due to mechanical issues. The government said that is typical of a refurbishment like this, WorkBoat reports. 

Even smaller workboats have a hefty upfront cost compared to traditional diesel-powered watercraft. Planson’s electric watercraft cost $100,000 to build and outfit with a single electric outboard motor, and others like it are even more expensive, especially larger boats, Canary Media reports. These projects, like much new technology, have also relied heavily on grants from nonprofits and federal agencies. 

More broadly, transitioning to electric boats on working waterfronts will require infrastructure to support them, including charging stations and mechanics with expertise in repairing that equipment. This would be a sea change for the more rural fishing communities that have long worked with diesel or gas engines and lack grid access to support charging stations. It’s unclear if federal grant programs to support electrification will continue under the Trump administration. 

“The federal conditions are not great right now,” Morris said. Her team is focused on the boat electrification work “that we can do at the state level while we wait hopefully for the federal winds to be more favorable again.” 

And progress is still happening—albeit slowly, Morris said. Little wins help her stay optimistic, such as last week’s unveiling of Maine’s first electric boat charger in Portland Harbor. 

“We’ll keep squirreling away and figuring out the shore-side charging and infrastructure piece,” Morris said. “But the big policy levers and the finance mechanisms are the things that would really ultimately help this technology get to scale and be more accessible.” 

Cover photo:  In 2022, Planson and his team tested possible electric boat motors to power skiffs on Maine's working waterfront. Credit: Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images