By
Alex Smith |
Ponant is collaborating with French startup Farwind Energy to study and develop solutions for refuelling ships with marine hydrogen.
The two companies have defined a road map to develop production and use of renewable marine hydrogen. They will share progress on the management of hydrogen onboard and collaborate on development of first use cases and overcoming any technical obstacles they encounter.
The collaboration comes as part of Ponant’s Swap2Zero project, which aims to develop a transoceanic vessel that can achieve carbon neutrality while in operation. The concept ship is currently intended to be powered using wind, while the use of low-temperature fuel cells operating on liquid hydrogen is being studied.
“This collaboration is an opportunity to jointly develop a major project that associates a ship with her own source of renewable energy produced locally,” said Mathieu Petiteau, newbuilding and research and development director at Ponant. “It is an unprecedented revolutionary approach that makes total sense. The Swap2Zero programme is the ideal demonstrator to scale up this solution and set new standards. This technological building block will be integrated into our other areas of research and development to support our decarbonisation strategy,”
Farwind’s wind-powered ‘energy ship’, meanwhile, is intended to provide a platform for the conversion, storage and delivery of far-offshore wind energy. It aims to produce electricity at sea from wind and transform it into hydrogen by the electrolysis of sea water before transporting the hydrogen to shore to be used as a fuel.
“We are proud to share our roadmap with Ponant, an innovative company committed to low carbon navigation,” said Arnaud Poitou, chairman of Farwind Energy. “This collaboration opens up new perspectives for our highly innovative renewable energy production technology. Capable of being produced near the ship’s operating areas, our liquid hydrogen represents a promising solution to decarbonise maritime transport.”
The two partners have set the goal to commission Ponant’s Swap2Zero project and Farwind’s energy ship at the same time, by 2030.