Swiss engine designer WinGD plans to launch engines able to run on methanol and ammonia from 2024 and 2025 respectively, based on its diesel-fuelled X engines and dual-fuel X-DF engines, already compatible with liquid biofuel or biogas.
The ability to use zero carbon or carbon neutral fuels such as ammonia and methanol in both of its core engine types, according to the company, will provide ship operators with unprecedented flexibility in how they reduce emissions.
“Our commitment to deliver engine technologies to enable the use of clean fuels by 2025 means that shipowners and operators can already invest in ships that are ready to use ammonia and methanol today, safe in the knowledge that WinGD will have the technologies available to power their vessels reliably, efficiently and cleanly,” asserted Dominik Schneiter, vice president research and development at WinGD.
The timeframe for ammonia and methanol capability is said to be part of a wider ambition to grow sales of multi-fueled engines capable of operating on carbon-neutral fuels to 50% of the company’s orderbook by 2030.
“By 2030, many of the ships that will be sailing in 2050 – the date of IMO’s greenhouse gas emission reduction target – will already have been ordered,” said Volkmar Galke, director of global sales at WinGD. “Our clean fuel engine technologies will be available well before then and will be based largely on our current technologies, allowing us to support shipowners and operators in their decarbonisation choices whenever they make them.”
