Wind Propulsion Technologies as Key to Decarbonising the World Fleet

Driven by the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) strategic targets on greenhouse gases (GHG) and corresponding efficiency incentives (e.g., EEDI and EEXI), more and more ship owners and operators are becoming interested in the potential of wind propulsion technologies (WPS) as a green propulsion alternative. Nonetheless, shippers and operators are currently uncertain which WPS is the optimum for their specific needs and requirements, as all vendors compete by arguing for the merits of their technology without objective scrutiny. Since each technology can be superior for a particular set of route, ship, and operational constraints, it is currently very difficult or even impossible to pick a general winner. Thus, to utilise the wind's potential to a maximum, speed up the green transition (reducing pollutant emissions), and lower the economic burden on operator expenses while respecting operational constraints, this research project aims to develop a cost-benefit analysis tool. For a given ship and route, the tool will identify optima in the wind propulsion system (WPS) design space to minimise pollutant emissions and total costs (including potential marked-based measures). The goal is to determine which WPS class, configuration, and arrangement is the optimised technology to achieve the most emission reduction while being the most attractive for the business.

With this project, we expect to maximise the potential of the existing WPS technology by objectively highlighting each solution's strengths and weaknesses, thus facilitating a faster and cheaper transition to a fully decarbonised fleet.