Future trends of electrical propulsion and implications to ship design

The exponential growth of the electric propulsion fleet from 1995 onwards was driven by a combination of the following three factors:

1. Technical developments 1.1. Development of power electronics-the

mass production of semi-conductors in the early 80’s made possible the introduction of high power AC/AC converters which in turn led to the introduction of electrical propulsion without recurring to Controlled Pitch Propellers (CPP).