New report on potential for wind propulsion

Seawork 11th - 13th June 2024	Speed@Seawork 10th June 2024	Commercial Marine Network Conferences

The 25th edition of Europe’s largest commercial marine and workboat exhibition, provides businesses the opportunity to showcase their services, equipment, vessels and supplies to an international audience.	Speed@Seawork on Monday 10 June in Cowes offers a sector specific event that showcases fast vessels operating at high speed for security interventions and Search & Rescue.	The Commercial Marine Network, in partnership with Seawork and Maritime Journal, introduce Series 3 of ‘Get set for Workboat 2050’. An online conference series of expert panels navigating the waters of decarbonisation compliance and looking at practical applications across the workboat industry.
Visit the Seawork Website	Speed@Seawork on the Seawork Website	View the Conferences on Maritime Journal

A new study on the potential market for wind propulsion technologies has identified a multitude of barriers that are preventing its development.

Commissioned by DG Climate Action, the report said the barriers which stand out were, firstly - information on the performance, operability, safety, durability, and economic implications of the wind propulsion technologies.

Secondly, a lack of access to capital for the development of wind propulsion technologies, especially for building and testing of full scale demonstrators. As well as incentives to improve energy efficiency/reduce CO2 emissions of ships.

The study also identified different actions that can be taken once a standardized assessment method has been developed.

These actions aim at improving the generation of more information on the wind propulsion technologies, at improving the access to and value of this information, and at improving the access to capital for the development and testing of full scale demonstrators.

To determine the savings potentials, models have been developed for the different wind propulsion technologies. Each model has been used to determine the technologies’ power savings for six sample ships across AIS-recorded voyage profiles and for sample routes, differentiating two speed regimes respectively.

The study reported that if some wind propulsion technologies for ships reach marketability in 2020, the maximum market potential for bulk carriers, tankers and container vessels is estimated to add up to around 3,700–10,700 installed systems until 2030

Use of these wind propulsion systems would then lead to CO2 savings of around 3.5–7.5 Mt CO2 in 2030 and the wind propulsion sector would then be good for around 6,500–8,000 direct and around 8,500–10,000 indirect jobs.

The study has been jointly carried out by CE Delft, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Fraunhofer ISI, and Chalmers University of Technology.

By Alice Mason