The Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult has secured funding for five projects as part of the Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition, funded by the Department for Transport and delivered in partnership with Innovate UK
Altogether, 55 projects successfully secured a total of £23M (US$31M) in funding as part of the competition, announced at an event during London International Shipping Week by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.
ORE Catapult is either leading or is a consortium partner in five of those projects, totalling £3.3M in funding awarded. The projects will convene industry, the supply chain and government to address the policy, commercial, regulatory and technical barriers to achieving maritime decarbonisation.
One of the Competition’s flagship projects is a feasibility study into establishing a National Clean Maritime Demonstration Hub in ABP’s Grimsby docks – the world’s largest offshore wind O&M port. ORE Catapult will lead this project alongside nine supply chain partners and two industrial advisors.
The other four projects include Artemis Technologies, which will further develop its eFoiler technology; work with MJR Power & Automation to develop a world-first offshore vessel charging system taking power from an offshore windfarm; a project led by Concept Systems Ltd investigating data-led emissions management; and development of an offshore wind power barge providing vessel-to-vessel charging capability, to be led by Aluminium Marine Consultants.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said, “As an island nation built on our maritime prowess, it is only right that we lead by example when it comes to decarbonising the sector and building back greener. The projects announced today showcase the best of British innovation and get us another step closer to our decarbonisation targets.”
Regional partnership manager Stuart Barnes, who led on the Competition bids for ORE Catapult said, “The fact that ORE Catapult is leading, or is a partner in, five out of the 55 projects funded through the Competition just underlines the huge role that offshore wind will play in the future decarbonisation of the UK’s maritime sector.
“These grant funding wins build on the work we undertook earlier this year in partnership with the Workboat Association on behalf of the Department for Transport and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to develop an innovation roadmap for decarbonising North Sea offshore wind operations and maintenance vessels.
“We are excited to be working on this diverse group of projects with some of the industry’s leading players from across the UK. We must ensure that offshore wind plays a key role in forging the emerging clean maritime industry of the 21st Century, driving rapid innovation, improving sustainability and levelling up through the creation of high-value jobs in key maritime clusters across the UK.”
The National Clean Maritime Demonstration Hub project will conduct a feasibility study informing a business case for infrastructure-investment in zero-emissions fuels/charging-infrastructure at Port of Grimsby at the same time as investment in operational programmes of work that will establish Grimsby as a national Clean Maritime Demonstration Hub. Project partners include: ORE Catapult; Wood Group; Lloyds Register; ABP; Infrastrata (Harland & Wolff); TP Group; MJR Power & Automation; ZEM-Tech; Rix; Workboat Association.
Led by Artemis Technologies and building on the work of the emerging Belfast Maritime Consortium cluster, the Artemis electric eFoiler crew transfer vessel (CTV) project brings together partners from across the supply chain to investigate the feasibility of the electric propulsion system as a transformative solution to decarbonise global CTV operations. Project partners include: Artemis Technologies; OREC; Lloyd’s Register EMEA, Tidal Transit Ltd.
The offshore wind ‘on-turbine’ electrical vessel charging system project aims to design, build and test an electric charge point situated on a wind turbine. This will access the infrastructure already in place including the turbine platform and electrical cables to provide renewable electricity to vessels.
As an ‘eCTV’ docks with the turbine, a cable reel will lower an electrical charging connection which will plug in to the vessel and charge a battery on board. Although the technology necessary for this is relatively mature, the project will need to develop standards, working practices and procedures to safely carry this out at sea. Project partners include: ORE Catapult MJR Power & Automation Ltd; OREC; Artemis Technologies; Tidal Transit; Xceco.
The Data Led Emissions Management project builds on proven solutions to provide an innovative approach to the analysis of vessel emissions. It will utilise the ION Geo Marlin solution as a base, proven over more than 150 global deployments, to integrate data from an existing activity database. The resulting solution will provide historical backlogged performance analytics as a baseline, as well as close to real-time performance analytics via a range of standard dashboards that will enable the port and vessel operators to review performance. Project Partners include: ORE Catapult; and Plymouth Marine Laboratory.
The OWL Charging Vessel project will complete a detailed design and operational simulation of a mothership charging vessel, hosting a number of electric CTVs. The mothership will take the concept of in-field charging and provide a flexible solution capable of removing diesel emissions from offshore wind operations and maintenance. Project partners include: Aluminium Marine Consulting; ORE Catapult; Turbulent Simulations Ltd; MJR Power & Automation Ltd; Jeremy Benn Associates Ltd.
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