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The case for H
THE CASE FOR HYDROGEN IN WORKBOATS
Among the sea of potential future fuels for shipping, hydrogen is thought by many to be the frontrunner – despite the challenges in the technology and regulations that will have to go with it
At the last session of Series 2, Get Set for Workboat 2050, hosted at Seawork, stakeholders discussed the potential in workboats under the heading ‘Is there a place for hydrogen in the decarbonisation roadmap for the workboat sector?’
The simple answer is – probably. The complex answer is - not yet, not across the board, and only if the economics are ‘tolerable’.
Regulation hurdle
One of the hurdles will be regulation, or lack of it, with workboat owners and manufacturers working blindly without specific requirements yet in place.
“We work directly with the regulators and working with the MCA to make sure their intentions are aligned with the industry’s intentions,” said Workboat Association chief Kerrie Forster. “At the end of the day we’re all working towards the best results – but there’s a lot that’s happened globally that affects these things.”
It can’t be solved too quickly, as Jonathan Lindsay, Operations and Technology Director at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, Scotland, told the session.
“We have our own green hydrogen plant linked to tidal energy, and we are looking at decarbonising the entire Orkney ferry fleet, but although the technology is there it’s the regulatory approval that’s holding it up,” he said.
Lack of regulation means there is also a lack of hydrogen refuelling infrastructure, which is one of the barriers to mass adoption facing the Port of London Authority (PLA), which operates more than 540 boats on 95 miles of tidal Thames, from passenger high-speed boats to towage tugs and freight carriers.
“This future fuels transition is going to be one of the key elements in getting to net zero and we’ve got to consider how we deliver this, both from a vessel point of view and from the shore infrastructure perspective,” said Steven Clapperton, Director of Sustainable Marine Operations for the PLA, making the point that there was no one-size-fits-all when it came to battery/diesel/fuel cell and electric combinations because of the many different weights, capacities and usage among vessels.
“The modelling suggests to us that continuing to use internal combustion engines, with a low-carbon fuel – like a drop-in biofuel, for example – is the most economically viable up to a point, although we accept it’s not carbon neutral nor compatible with achieving net zero by 2050,” he said. “In all likelihood, first movers are going to proceed with fuel cell or hydrogen variants as a fuel before this, providing the economics are tolerable.”
Nothing was viable unless the infrastructure was in place, which had also surprised them in terms of the size of footprint needed for the necessary glass balls, cable runs and so on.
Hydrogen injections
Jason Munro, Director and Engineer at the emissions-reduction firm Ecomotus, says the way to go is to burn fuel properly.
By adding a small amount of hydrogen to the air flow in the engine, he said, a cleaner burn resulted in the heart of the engine. This means more power, less maintenance, fewer emissions and a significant fuel saving.
The company’s standalone, bolt-on EcoPro system also meant no pressurised hydrogen was needed on board.
Munro gave several case studies, including a beam trawler by Barentszee, Water Dance, which he said had saved around 5,000 litres of fuel in the first week by using Ecomotus’s system.
He said the company was working on 50,000t bulk carriers and anticipated saving them 3-4 tonnes of fuel each day.
“You need a small amount of hydrogen and we make it on board from water,” Munro said. “We’re not producing carbon because we are burning the fuel correctly.”
James Eatwell, Head of Research and Development with Cox Marine, said a consortium of universities, Lloyd’s Register and other companies had set up a Shipping, Hydrogen & Port Ecosystems (SHAPE) consortium to look at transitioning the port of Portsmouth into the UK’s first zero-emissions maritime hub.
The work included converting one of Cox’s CXO300 diesel outboard engines to operate as a dual-fuel hydrogen engine and demonstrate the engine operating in the port environment, Eatwell said.
They wanted something they could implement fairly quickly, he said – and it had to be dual fuel rather than just hydrogen to give the flexibility to run on just diesel if hydrogen was not available – although the proportion of hydrogen in the split could be as much as 95%, he said.
There is a way to go before we can expect a clear pathway for future fuels, but the workboat sector for one is trying hydrogen options with encouraging signs.
“The sector represents a very wide and diverse part of the maritime community,” said Steven Clapperton. “There is a place but I don’t think it’s going to be exclusively hydrogen, it will be a lot more diverse.”
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