NH3CRAFT aims at fully designing, engineering, developing and demonstrating a next generation sustainable, commercially attractive and safe technology for high-quantity on-board storage of NH3 as marine fuel. Two innovative modular and scalable steel and composite storage tank configurations for 1,000 m3 liquid NH3 at 10 bar and the corresponding auxiliary systems will be installed on a 31,000 Deadweight Tonnage (DWT) multi-purpose vessel. The exact vessel has been designated and provided by a participating major ship management company Additionally, five different types of vessels and corresponding fuel-storage tank concept adaptations will be studied and documented: a SSS bulk carrier, a tanker and a container ocean going vessels, a typical RoPax ferry, and a small Inland Waterways Transportation passenger vessel. An innovative digital platform will integrate all core simulations and models through digital interfaces and will develop an engineering system matrix and specifications for the fuel storage, supply, and piping, monitoring and venting subsystems. Safety and risk assessment for all vessels will lead to the development of safety guidelines and classification rules. NH3CRAFT will showcase the entire NH3 supply chain in order to increase confidence in its use and promote its uptake. LCA and techno-economic evaluation will prove the sustainability and will support further exploitation and commercialization of the innovative solutions. The vision is to pioneer the reduction of GHG emissions by at least 50% by 2050 compared to 2008 and the eventual “elimination of total GHG emissions and air pollution” from shipping (SRIA for ZEWT goals) remaining consistent with the Paris Agreement. NH3CRAFT aspires to help Europe serve societal needs, maintain global maritime leadership, and support an innovation-driven industry with highly skilled jobs, safe, efficient, and sustainable technological solutions, with new international standards, rules, and regulations.

SAFeCRAFT’s overall goal is to develop and demonstrate the safety and viability and accelerate the adoption of Sustainable Alternative Fuels (SAFs) in waterborne transport. It demonstrates four technologies, acting as SAF enablers for different types of oceangoing and short sea shipping vessels, both newbuilding and retrofits. SAFs used during handling, storage, and for main propulsion include liquid & compressed green H2, and two green H2 carriers, LOHCs and ammonia. SAFs used will be demonstrated on a bulk carrier and assessed and validated through detailed desktop studies for four other types of vessels typical in EU ports. For the demo vessel, H2 will be used as the primary fuel source for a Generator Set providing power to a shaft motor (Power-Take-In) in parallel with the M/E, thus covering part of ship’s propulsion needs. The desktop studies feature the aforementioned SAFs that lead into three powertrain options for each vessel, 1) fuel cell stacks & marine-type battery packs, 2) internal combustion M/E (for newbuildings), 3) internal combustion PTI generator similar to the demo. These SAF enabling power train systems will be analyzed in-depth, using specific KPIs for safety, energy efficiency, environmental impact and technoeconomic feasibility. SAFeCRAFT A-Z approach in utilizing SAFs, including bunkering, storage, handling and fuel consumption onboard, and the issuance of Approval in Principle for the engineering and design processes, will accelerate their implementation. Three societal objectives will be served: 1) facilitating the creation of highly skilled jobs, 2) economic growth in the EU by development of new technologies and regulatory standards for waterborne transport, 3) reduction of the environmental footprint and acceleration of the transition to SAFs. The core consortium members of the current proposal are also the core team of the NH3CRAFT and LH2CRAFT projects, while the well-balanced consortium consists of 11 partners from 6 countries.

The overall goal of LH2CRAFT is to develop next generation, sustainable, commercially attractive, and safe long-term storage and long-distance transportation of Liquid Hydrogen (LH2) for commercial vessels (or even as fuel in certain applications). It aims at developing an innovative containment system of membrane-type for high-capacity storage (e.g., 200,000 m3) at a temperature of -253 deg C and demonstrating and validating it on a 10 ton (180 m3) prototype. It foresees the analysis of alternative conceptual designs with safety and risk assessment initiated at an early stage of the design process of the cargo containment system (CCS) exceeding currently demonstrated sizes. The design will allow LH2 storage to large dimensions, similar to those of existing LNG carriers. Special characteristics (storage tank, handling, distribution, safety, and monitoring subsystems (HDMSS) of the concepts that support up- or down-scaling will be detailed in order to prove the modularity and scalability of the proposed solution. The CCS will achieve AiP and general approval by a major classification society (three IACS members are participating). Demonstration will be done via the detailed design, construction, and testing of the reduced size prototype. LH2CRAFT will also develop a preliminary integrated ship design and carry out the corresponding cost estimation, achieving reduced boil-off rates of 0.5 % per day. A life cycle model will provide a significant tool enabling comparison between different new design or retrofit strategies while the LCA of the large carrier will evaluate the environmental impact from cradle to grave identifying also activities related to sustainability and recyclability and determining the environmental benefits. Two societal objectives will be served: society’s needs and EU’s strong global maritime leadership for its innovation-driven industry providing highly skilled jobs, efficient technological solutions, and international regulatory standards.

The shipping industry is responsible for around 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and this is expected to increase as global trade and shipping activity continues to grow. As such, reducing emissions from shipping is an important part of global efforts to tackle climate change. In recent years, policies and legislation, mainly focusing on environmental sustainability, have pushed international shipping toward the process of its decarbonization. Regulatory bodies are pressing on the maritime world by adopting ambitious targets and by introducing a number of initiatives that will facilitate the transition to a sustainable future, including the International Maritime Organization's strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from shipping, which aims to halve emissions from the sector by 2050 compared to 2008 levels. To this end, BlueBARGE will design, develop and demonstrate an optimum power-barge solution to mainly support offshore power supply to moored and anchored vessels, limiting local polluting emissions and global GHG footprint in a life cycle perspective, following a modular, scalable, adaptable and flexible design approach which will facilitate its commercialisation by 2030. The proposed power-barge solution will consider different alternatives as containerised power supply modules in a variety of configurations, where battery modules will serve as basis due to their high energy efficiency and readiness level, and other considered modules including hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen generators. The project will address electrical integration issues, interfacing challenges of the barge with ships, ports and local grid, operational safety and regulatory compliance aspects, delivering a high-readiness and complete “power bunkering” solution. Overall, the BlueBARGE project’s full integrated system aims at contributing to the shift of the maritime industry towards the goals of electrification and decarbonisation at an EU and international level.

BAMBOO tackles the barriers for the implementation of a sustainable, large-scale offshore Floating PhotoVoltaics (FPV) system of 1 km2/150 MW, that will act as a blueprint for rollout of offshore FPV projects in Europe, and that is to be implemented in conjunction with the offshore wind leading EU utility-partner. Offshore FPV extends PV potential at enormous scales to make Europe meet its climate targets for 2030 and 2050. It makes use of space at sea, large-scale economies of scale, complementary energy yield with wind farms, and it isa solution with potentially low impact on aquatic eco-systems. However, developing offshore FPV systems is technically challenging due to the harsh conditions of waves &corrosive environments, and economically not feasible yet. Project BAMBOO addresses these challenges through four breakthrough innovations, including: 1. Large floating surface understanding through world’s first basin scale tests and hydrodynamic modelling of 1 km2 blanket-type arrays, 2. A 5 MW demonstrator in the North Sea with hybrid design encompassing the benefits of larger array protection in floaters, 3. The offshore world’s first dynamic floating substation for offshore FPV, and 4. The development of 6 world’s first standard offshore testing methodologies for key FPV-components Through assessments of energy yield, circularity of materials, environmental impact, LCA and end-of-life strategies, BAMBOO paves the way to scale offshore FPV systems to commercial and sustainable applications, significantly reducing emissions, while having a net-positive impact on the marine ecosystem. The consortium covers what is necessary to make BAMBOO a success: companies including Oceans of Energy will provide the technologies, RTOs including MARIN and Fraunhofer the assessment of the system and its environmental impact, ABS expertise on certifications and the industry-leading utility the capacity to implement the large-scale integration of offshore wind with FPV farms.