The 2020s are shaping up as the decade where Japanese shipbuilders innovate to survive, delivering a swathe of totally new tonnage.
The latest example of this innovation is the Power ARK, a prototype of which will be built by Imabari Shipbuilding by 2025 in partnership with the design’s Japanese creator, PowerX. The so called power transfer vessel features specially designed massive marine batteries which will take energy from offshore wind farms to deliver to more than 200,000 Japanese households in a single voyage.
“With the Power ARK project, PowerX aims to efficiently distribute renewable energy to regions with high demand, ultimately leading to the greater utilization of clean energy resources throughout the nation,” PowerX explained in a release.
Paolo Cerruti, co-founder and COO of Northvolt, Caesar Sengupta, ex-VP and general manager at Google, and Mark Tercek, former CEO of The Nature Conservancy and former partner at Goldman Sachs, are non-executive directors of PowerX.
Other world first ship types coming out of Japan include Kawasaki Heavy’s liquedfied hydrogen carrier, which is expected to start operating later this month.