The Carbon Trust’s Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA) has launched a competition to boost the development of technologies with the possibility to reduce vessel emissions and fuel consumption. Up to £100,000 in funding will be awarded to the winning technologies, from an overall funding pot of £300,000, to support technology development or showcase.
The OWA Low Emission Vessels competition will give emphasis on innovations for Crew Transfer Vessels (CTVs). Designs submitted to the competition will be assessed for their total cost, operations, and safety advantages to make sure they can be viable solutions for offshore wind operations.
In addition, ship designs, power and propulsion technologies, along with energy-providing systems will be considered under the competition.
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The competition will operate in parallel with an OWA commissioned study to evaluate possible technologies for decreasing emissions and fuel consumption that are suitable for, or show potential to be used, in offshore wind vessels safely. The study aims to:
- Reduce vessel emissions, fuel costs and vessels’ operational maintenance costs for offshore wind operations;
- Understand and evaluate the cost/benefit of existing and future powering and storage technologies, particularly from other industries;
- Determine the infrastructure required for integrating this new technology into offshore wind operations.
Carbon Trust and Black & Veatch deliver the competition on behalf of the Scottish Government and the nine OWA industry partners: EnBW, E.ON, Equinor, Innogy, Ørsted, Scottish Power Renewables, Shell, SSE, and Vattenfall Wind Power.
Speaking on the occasion, Dan Kyle Spearman, Manager of Offshore Wind Access Systems, the Carbon Trust, commented:
The available funding will help kick-start the wider industry into looking into new ideas and using their ingenuity to overcome these challenges. The offshore wind industry also has a great opportunity to be a testbed and demonstration platform for new low-carbon technologies
