Renewable energy will be more important to shipping’s climate goals than any other fuel feedstock, according to a survey of 200 maritime decision-makers.
The E-Fuels in the Shipping Industry survey, conducted by market researcher mo’web and commissioned by Accelleron, identifies the huge potential and some of the key challenges that ship owners and operators face as they deploy alternative fuels to meet industry targets of climate neutrality by 2050.
Nine out of ten believe in e-fuels
According to the survey, ore than nine out of ten companies in the maritime industry believe that e-fuels play a substantial role and could make shipping more sustainable. The potential of this synthetic fuel to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in shipping is rated as very good to good by 93 percent. However, e-fuels are largely expected to play only a niche role in the global shipping industry, at least until 2030.
E-fuel challenges
In addition to the technical complexity, other obstacles to the implementation of e-fuels are seen as the high investment costs involved in the changeover to e-fuels and in the lack of availability at the global level.
According to considerably more than half of the decisionmakers surveyed, the availability of e-fuels will remain poor until 2030. Here, companies see it as the responsibility of governments to create incentives for the production of e-fuels and fund research and development in this field.
The experts also consider it necessary to establish infrastructure both for the production and the distribution of this fuel in order to improve availability. Three-quarters of those surveyed in the shipping industry assume that the cost of e-fuels will remain higher than that of fossil fuels over the next 12 years.
Even taking tax incentives into account, the majority of those surveyed do not expect cost parity to be reached before 2040. The largest cost driver is the construction and operation of production facilities.
Looking forward
However, three-quarters of those surveyed anticipate that by 2045, the maritime industry will be unable to operate without e-fuels. 52 percent of maritime companies and ship operators currently view e-fuels as a viable alternative, and 47 percent have concrete investment plans.
Finally, more than one-third of maritime companies and ship operators are considering retrofitting their vessels to accommodate e-fuels.
The cross-sector focus in the industry and among legislators must now quickly shift to building the right infrastructure for better availability and the right government incentives to achieve long-term cost parity between fossil fuels and e-fuels.
… concluded says Daniel Bischofberger, CEO of Accelleron
