Wind-assisted ship propulsion installations are on track to double this year over last year’s figure of just over 20, according to Gavin Allwright, secretary-general of the International Windship Association (IWSA) with a wide range of wind tech being sought by shipowners, including kites, hard sails and foils.
Wind-assisted propulsion was identified as one of the top tech developments in Splash’s annual tech forecast published at the start of the year with major charterers coming onboard to support the move.
“The message that we have delivered to national governments, the EU, the IMO and at the UN headquarters in New York has been that wind delivers on the most ambitious targets, it is the only propulsive energy source that will effectively pay for itself and a firm, robust and predictable framework for decarbonisation is what is needed for the industry to invest, scale quickly and weather the decarbonisation storm,” Allwright wrote in IWSA’s latest newsletter.
