In the Maritime & Offshore supplement, published with Dutch financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad on 2 October 2026, owner and director Maarten van Berkum explains why offshore and dredging companies are choosing electric drives for underwater applications more and more often.
The supplement looks at how the maritime sector is becoming more sustainable. In it, EN motors describes a clear shift underwater, away from hydraulic drives and towards electric ones.
Less risk of leakage
“If there’s no oil in a motor, there’s no oil to leak out when something goes wrong,” says Van Berkum. At sea, the demand for solutions that keep that risk as low as possible keeps growing. EN motors supplies air-filled motors for depths down to 200 metres. At greater depths, oil is used to compensate for the external pressure.
More efficient without the extra step
A hydraulic system first needs an electric motor to drive a pump, and every step in between loses energy. “If you can mount the electric motor directly on the installation, you remove those steps.”
In practice: a wind farm off the French coast
For an installation that drills foundation holes in the seabed, EN motors supplied six 375 kW motors that drive the drilling head through a ring gear. A custom bearing design absorbs the heavy radial forces. Motors from earlier suppliers had lasted only a few hours under those conditions.
Hydraulics stay, electric grows
For short, powerful movements, hydraulics are still a good choice. For pumps and propulsion, electric is often the logical option. “Both technologies will continue to exist side by side, but electric drives are certainly going to gain ground.”