The ferry Tycho Brahe has been connecting the Danish Helsingør with the Swedish Helsingborg since 1991 . The route across the Øresund is about 5 km long and takes 20 minutes.
The Tycho Brahe can carry 1250 passengers and 240 cars.
Conversion to battery-electric operation
The ferry and its sister ship Aurora af Helsingborg were converted to battery-electric operation in 2018 . The ships are loaded fully automatically with the help of a robotic arm and take five to nine minutes for the 20-minute crossing. One route requires around 1,175 kWh, the batteries have a capacity of 4,160 kWh. The conversion made it possible to reduce CO 2 emissions on the route by around 65%, with the two converted ships covering the majority of the timetable. The diesel engines remained on the ship so that the ship remains navigable even with discharged batteries.
The EU supported the retrofitting as part of the Connecting Europe Facility with around 13.15 million euros. The total cost of the retrofitting came to SEK 300 million (almost EUR 30 million).