WHISPER, an energy transition project comprised of 14 partners, received €9,2 million in funding from Horizon Europe, regarding retrofitting ships to achieve emission reductions.
The project aims to develop a solution that can reduce emissions from the long-distance maritime industry. Specifically, the project’s consortium will develop a fully modular retrofit solution, that includes a wind-solar hybrid power system to reduce auxiliary engine emissions and a tilting wingsail system to provide wind-assisted propulsion.
In fact, WHISPER’s goal is to achieve around 30% fuel savings on a retrofit bulk carrier and more than 15% on a retrofit containership, according to one of the partners, AYRO.
In the current context of fuel price volatility and the increasingly stringent environmental regulations with the implementation of the Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) this year for the maritime industry, we see the WHISPER project as a catalyst for retrofitting the commercial vessels with breakthrough green technologies
stated Marc Van Peteghem, chairman and co-founder of AYRO.
What is more, Maria Kristin Drastardottir, co-founder of Sidewind, added that “by combining and developing three innovative wind and solar technologies, and creating a modular, retrofit solution, we can lower the emissions of container and tank ships by 15-30%. If successful and widely adopted, WHISPER could reduce the emissions of the long-distance maritime transport industry by what equals the emissions of entire countries.”
