Norway’s Wilhelmsen has announced that its HyShip project has been granted EUR8m ($9.44m) in funding from the EU’s Research and Innovation programme Horizon 2020.
The HyShip project involves 14 European partners collaborating on the design and construction of a new ro-ro demonstration vessel running on liquid green hydrogen (LH2), as well as the establishment of a viable LH2 supply chain and bunkering platform.
The ship, to be named Topeka, will be built for zero emissions through a combination of 1,000 kWh battery capacity and a three-megawatt proton exchange membrane hydrogen fuel cell.
It is slated to be operational from 2024 and will be operated by Wilhelmsen. It will also distribute LH2 to hydrogen hubs along the Norwegian coast.
“Hydrogen as a fuel enables opportunities for low, or zero-emission shipping. Topeka will be our first step towards scalable LH2 fuelled maritime operations. We shall create a full LH2 infrastructure and commercial ecosystem, while at the same time removing yearly some 25,000 trucks from the roads,” said Per Brinchmann, vice president of special projects at Wilhelmsen.
The HySHIP consortium partners alongside project leader Wilhelmsen are Kongsberg Maritime, LMG Marin, Equinor, Norled, PersEE, Diana Shipping, Stolt-Nielsen Inland Tanker Service, Air Liquide, NCE Maritime CleanTech, DNV GL, ETH Zürich, Strathclyde University and Demokritos.
It is altogether fitting and proper that a Norsk hydrogen ship should be named for a land-locked American city—Topeka—because the world’s first hydrogen locomotive was built in BNSF Railways Topeka, Kansas, Shops!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6yGTft-xTo
Public debt-fuelled ship. We will se many in next years.