State of the art

To start with, I would want to define what a frigate is. A frigate is a class of warship with different missions,
primarily naval warfare and anti-submarine, with a displacement between the margins of 3000 and 7000 t
and a length of 130 to 150 m. It would be a warship located in proportions between the corvette and the
destroyer.

Forbin (D620)

The corvette would have dimensions from 500 to 3000 t and lengths between 55 and 130 m

The destroyers would present from 3500 to 10,000 t and lengths between 130 to 160 m.

1.1. Difference between frigate and destroyer

Although destroyer-type ships should encompass a genre of vessels larger than frigates, the truth is that
the differences are not so apparent. Some European nations such as Spain and Germany have frigates
that would be considered destroyers in other countries.

"The key distinction between frigates and destroyers is size and, by extension, function," notes Dr.
Sidharth Kaushal, research fellow Royal United Services Institute in the United Kingdom. "By being larger,
destroyers can carry and generate more power for more powerful high-resolution radar and a greater
number of vertical launch cells. Thus, they can provide air and missile defense."Frigates are typically
used as escort ships to protect sea lines of communication or as an auxiliary component of a strike group.
At the same time, destroyers are often integrated into carrier battle groups as an air defense component
or used to provide territorial air and missile defense."

The destroyer has always been faster than the frigate in terms of speed. However, the difference is hardly
appreciable nowadays, with top rates in both types of vessels being slightly above 30 knots.
1.2. History

The etymological origin of the word "frigate" comes from the Italian word "fregàta," used since 1350,
derived from the Latin "naufragatta." The fregatas were vessels used when a shipwreck occurred; they
were small ships that the galleys carried attached to the stern in case of emergency. Later, at the end of
the 15th century, the term began to be extended to refer to a light galley built in the Mediterranean,
equipped with oars, sails, and a light armament, to be fast and maneuverable.

At the beginning of the 17th century, the first large frigate capable of sailing the oceans was built in
Holland. The Dutch sought to counteract the power of the Spanish fleet by replacing their heavier ships
with frigates. The effectiveness of the Dutch frigates became visible in the battle of Las Dunas in 1639,
which made more navies interested in adopting the design, among them the English.

From the mid-19th century onwards, warships began to be armored, with the appearance of ironclad
warships, built entirely of metallic materials, increasingly more prominent, heavier, and more heavily
armed, which led to the decline of frigates.

During World War II, the term frigate reappears for escort, minesweeping, and submarine fighting
missions. Since then, one of the primary missions to which frigates began to be attributed is
anti-submarine warfare. These frigates have less attack power and speed than a destroyer of the time,
reaching only 20 knots, but for the performance of anti-submarine missions, it is enough for them since
submarines were still much slower.

After World War II, the introduction of the guided-missile causes the construction of large warships and
battleships to cease to make sense, giving more prevalence to medium-sized warships such as frigates
and destroyers.

(Denmark’s Iver Huitfeldt-class frigate).

To date, we have few examples of hybrid propulsion, but not nonexistent. In this state of the art, I will
mention some cases of hybrid propulsion and, because it is directly related, others of exclusively electric
propulsion.

The first electric boat was developed by German inventor Moritz von Jacobi in 1839 in St. Petersburg,
Russia. It was a 7 m long boat carrying 14 passengers at 3 knots. It was successfully demonstrated to
Emperor Nicholas I of Russia on the Neva River. During the rest of the century, various passenger boats
were manufactured that sailed on non-tidal waters. With the advent of the gasoline outboard engine,
electric power in ships was relegated to use exclusively in submarines since its invention by Isaac Peral in
1890.

Today, hybrid propulsion with stored electric energy onboard is becoming popular among passenger
vessels such as ferries and yachts, especially if they do not make long voyages. Its leading
manufacturers are MTU (a subsidiary of Rolls Royce), Volvo Penta, and Wartsila.

There are a few examples of hybrid propulsion with batteries in the military world. One of the first cases
was the Truxtun destroyer (DDG-103) of the U.S. Navy. This destroyer is part of the Arleigh Burke-class
destroyers, to which the propulsion plant was modified to operate with the help of a battery system. This
project was started in 2013 with the hope of repeating it, but the results obtained were not optimal as
expected.

In Spain, Navantia manufactures the Avante family patrol vessels ordered with traditional propulsion or
with a hybrid propulsion plant at the contractor's discretion. Another military vessel project with hybrid
propulsion being carried out by Navantia is the F2M2 frigate, better known as the F110.

In Norway, Norway's first battery-electric ferry, the MF Ampere, with 1 MWh of power capacity and cargo
space for 120 cars and 12 trucks, was built in 2016.
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In 2019, the 100-meter, 80-car, 300-passenger Tellus ferry in Sweden was completed. The ferry has two
electrically driven POD propulsion units, one at each end, so that it is not necessary to turn to enter and
exit the fjord. Power for the propulsion units comes from batteries or four Volvo Penta D16 MH engines.

The Swedish Transport Administration's goal is the use of all-electric transport. However, electric vessels
cannot travel long distances, so the tendency has been to use these diesel-electric hybrid propulsion
systems. The ferry can currently complete three 2 km trips in all-electric mode before it is necessary to
power the gensets. Currently, Tellus' 12 racks of Corvus batteries, with a total capacity of 949 kWh, are
charged overnight via an onshore charging station.

One of the advantages of the hybrid propulsion system is that it allows us to put the thermal engines at
the optimum load for which they are designed, minimizing consumption and emissions, and with all the
excess energy that is not consumed, the batteries are charged. Furthermore, if it is working and there is
excess consumption, energy is supplied by the batteries. Thus, there is an optimization.

These hybrid propulsion systems have the necessary equipment to charge the ship from port. Let us
consider that shore-based power plants are subject to strict environmental controls and that the
percentage of renewable energy produced is increasing. We can say that operating electric ships using
sustainable and renewable energy is a reality that is getting closer and closer.