New York-listed wood chip producer Enviva has signed up for a sail-assisted bulk carrier to be ordered by Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL), which will feature both MOL’s own hard sail Wind Challenger as well as rotor sails created by Anemoi Marine Technologies.
MOL has tasked Oshima Shipbuilding with the building of the 62,900 dwt ship, securing a 2024 delivery slot. MOL claims the installed variety of sails will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20%.
As part of Enviva’s goal to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from its operations by 2030, the company has committed to addressing scope 3 emissions. Shipping pellets across the Atlantic Ocean currently comprises one third of Enviva’s supply chain emissions.
Plans to develop the Wind Challenger hard sail started in 2009 as an industry-academia joint research project led by the University of Tokyo. MOL took charge of the plan in 2018 and has been working on the technology since. The first Wind Challenger is scheduled to be released in the second half of this year. The system converts wind energy to propulsive force with a telescopic hard sail.
