In the Ship-aH2oy project, green hydrogen from a megawatt-scale liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) will be used to develop and demonstrate a zero-emission propulsion system on board ships.
The consortium of 17 partners has been told by the European Climate Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) that they would receive 15 million Euros (project period: 5 years). The idea is to use a powertrain that combines LOHC and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) in a way that is significantly better than current internal combustion engines. The designed LOHC/SOFC powertrain will be exhibited on board one of Edda Wind’s Commissioning/Service Operation Vessels (C/SOV), giving the project a real-lab feel.
The thermal oil benzyl toluene used as the carrier material in Hydrogenious’ LOHC technology, which has already been demonstrated in stationary systems, enables the handling of hydrogen in a very safe and effective manner under ambient circumstances while leveraging existing infrastructure (transport, bunkering, etc). In a chemical catalytic process called hydrogenation and dehydrogenation, the gaseous hydrogen molecules are bound to and released from the carrier without self-discharge over time. The hazard potential is even lower than for diesel because of the carrier’s intrinsic properties (non-explosive, scarcely flammable, among others), making it clearly preferable to ammonia.
In Ship-a-H2oy, Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies will be in charge of the intricate design of the LOHC release unit and its integration with the SOFC, while Hydrogenious LOHC Maritime will communicate with the outside SOFC supplier and manage the introduction and installation of the entire system on the Edda Wind vessel that has already been prepared. Therefore, it is envisaged to build a scalable system architecture by integrating multiple megawatt LOHC/SOFC modules for larger ships and power plants.
The representatives of Hydrogenious LOHC and stensj Rederi attended yesterday’s kick-off meeting for all 17 Ship-a-H2oy project partners at project coordinator VTT in Finland (see, for example, ystein Skr, general manager of Hydrogenious LOHC Maritime, fifth from left, and Egil Arne Skare, chief project officer at stensj Rederi, second from left).
The goal is to show the effective operation of the onboard power plant using green hydrogen. As the project manager for the newbuilds, stensj Rederi is in charge of the primary interface and machinery space contributions.
After the first successful demonstration of the technology, the Ship-aH2oy partners already have plans to equip a number of other vessels with LOHC/SOFC systems. A replication study for the created LOHC/SOFC system will be conducted later on in the project’s duration, making it simple to replicate the system in ROPAX and service vessels, among other types of vessels.
