Published by Alaska Public Media on December 23, 2025.
On a cold, snowy day at Sitka’s marine haulout, men welded and worked on boat parks inside a giant, unheated commercial workspace. Off to one side were two giant engines — one white and one dark grey — stuck together in an intricate pattern of metal and tubing. The engine is hybrid electric, and it was about to be put in the Mirage, a 50-foot fishing vessel.
The Mirage could be Alaska’s first official hybrid electric fishing boat, and it’s one step closer to hitting the water. The boat is part of a pilot program based in Sitka to address high fuel costs for the fishing fleet and maybe make fishing just a little bit greener.
“We hauled out at the end of October, early November, cracked a lot of eggs, making this big omelet,” said Ben Matthys, of Southeast Sparks, who’s been working to adapt and install the hybrid engine for the boat’s owner the past couple of months. He said they’re pioneering this technology to the fleet to prove that hybridization is viable.
“Diesel is reliable,” he said, “but as we’re looking to save beyond those low hanging fruits, where do we go? And we decided that diesel electric is the way forward.”
The program is funded by a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, and includes converting two hybrid commercial fishing boats and one fully electric mariculture boat.
While the initial investment is high, Matthys said hopefully it’ll pay off for fishermen down the line.
“The margins for fishing are getting tighter,” he said. “The price per pound of what people can market the fish for, or what’s purchased at the plant, is lower, and fuel and all operating costs are higher, so most are still tied to going to spaces A, B and C to go get the fish, and even sometimes having to work harder to find that same amount of fish to pay the bills. So as we move forward to the next options to save and become more profitable, this is it.”
Another benefit is helping to address the climate impacts of fossil fuels, and make it healthier for fishermen onboard who are often exposed to harmful fumes, according to Linda Behnken, a commercial fisherman and director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA), which is pioneering the program. Fishermen might even be able to market their product as greener than the next guy and may be able to get a better price for their fish.
“So we think there are health benefits for fishermen, as well as for the ocean, and for people’s bottom line,” Behnken said.
She said they’ve worked for years to find ways for the fleet to operate more efficiently, by changing certain boat operations, or making certain modifications to vessels. And after a lot of input from people at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, they identified hybrid technologies as the next best step for fishing boats operating out of small communities.
“At a national level, there’s definitely a lot of interest across the country in hybrid or fully electric vessels,” Behnken said. “Folks in Maine at the Island Institute there have been working with their fleet to look at electric and hybrid. There’s some work being done in Norway on electric and hybrid, or alternative fuels. But up here, we’re really breaking new ground.”
