The Winds of Change are Shifting
We are living in challenging times, with fuel price hikes and volatility, supply chain pressures, the climate crisis along with the UN Secretary General, António Guterres declaring an ‘Ocean Emergency’ at the recent UN Oceans Conference in Lisbon, Portugal.
Shipping itself faces the extraordinary challenge of decarbonisation and coordinating that worldwide with a huge number of stakeholders, reliance on land-based energy supply chains and moveable assets that require high energy dense fuels for cross-ocean operations. This is the recipe that has understandably led many to label the sector as a hard-to-abate one that will take decades to decarbonise and cost in the realm of US$1.4-1.9 trillion to reach zero-emissions.
To meet that challenge, what would happen if shipping had access to an abundant, zero-emissions energy source that was available worldwide today? What if that energy source did not require mining, refining, transport, bunkering or storage onboard and the technology existed today to harness that? What if that energy source was delivered to the point of use at a fixed price and that price was zero? – well, we don’t need to speculate, as that energy source is the wind, and we already have over twenty large vessels harnessing it with a pipeline shaping up to double that number each year going forward.
Wind propulsion has of course been around for millennia, and indeed our globalised trading world was forged on the back of wind ships up to the early 20th Century. Then, for the best part of a century these vessels faded from sight as cheap fossil fuel flooded the market. However, the perfect storm of regulatory and market pressures to decarbonise, rising and volatile fuel prices along with impending carbon pricing are all driving a resurgence.
Wind propulsion is broken down broadly into two main approaches, with seven main technology categories (rotor sails, kites, soft and rigid sails, suction winds, turbines and hull forms). Wind-assist is the approach of building or retrofitting a motor vessel with a wind propulsion system that delivers propulsive energy that enables engines to be throttled back or speeds to be maintained but are not the main energy provider. Primary wind vessels however are ones that have wind energy as their primary means of propulsion and engines are auxiliaries that provide power when the vessel is in low wind areas, during manoeuvring etc.
Wind-assist can deliver 5-20% of the propulsive energy requirement for a retrofitted ship, with the potential to optimise out to 30%, but that percentage is calculated without any changes to the motor vessel operations, thus no special routing for wind or changes in speed etc. Whereas primary wind vessels can deliver 50%+ and very high levels when on windy routes and adjusted to maximise wind. There are also projects that are underway to capture the excess energy produced by the wind when sailing and to turn that energy into electricity and zero-emissions fuel onboard.
The last two months have seen the total number of large vessel wind-assist installations reach 21, with the installation of a rigid wing sail by Mitsui O.S.K Lines (MOL) on a new build 99,000 dwt bulker and two eConowind ventifoil suction wings retrofitted on a general cargo vessel. Not yet included in that number, we also had the launch of the Canopee, a RoRo to be operated by the Ariane Group to deliver Ariane 6 rocket parts from France to French Guiana, but not yet outfitted with its four AYRO rigs, which will be completed in the coming few months. We know have installations on two tankers, three bulkers, three ferries, four RoRos, eight general cargo vessels and one large fishing vessel, with at least three more installations scheduled before the end of the year and another handful in early 2023.
This same period has also seen a swathe of announcements of future builds and contracts signed for delivery later in 2023/4, with Cargill announcing a tie-up with Mitsubishi Corporation to make the first installation of two BAR Technology & Yara International developed wing sails on an 80,000dwt bulker, Berge Bulk committing to eight rotor sail installations by Anemoi Marine Technologies on a Valemax ore carrier and a Newcastlemax bulker and also another upcoming installation of four BAR/Yara wing sails on a Newcastlemax bulker. “K-Lines” announced a further three vessels to be equipped with Airseas kite systems, bringing their total orders to five and MOL announced another bulker installation along with Drax group featuring their wing sail alongside a set of Anemoi rotors sails. We also had the awarding of a contract to Zephyr & Borée for two low carbon containerised lines by a shipper’s coalition that includes Michelin which will see new build wind propulsion container vessels to be delivered in 2025
This momentum is building at a significant time, with EEXI and CII regulations coming into force next year and the likely inclusion of shipping in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, along with enforced decarbonisation requirements to be included in the Fuel EU Maritime legislation and US Ocean Shipping Reform Act among others. Thus, just as regulation and carbon pricing will start to bite, so will wind propulsion systems and newbuilds start to proliferate, demonstrating the efficacy, efficiency, safety and commercial viability of the systems but also seeing the cost of those systems start to fall as they become more standardised, and the economies of scale benefits start to kick in.
There is still work to remove the remaining market and non-market barriers and to assure financial markets of the viability and desirability of wind technologies, however things are moving in the right direction and the market forecasts from EU and UK research of up to 10,000 installations by 2030 and up to 45% of the fleet outfitted with wind by 2050 respectively are both achievable at the current growth rates, but these are also potentially conservative estimates too.
The winds of change are strengthening, it is time for the industry to set it’s sails for a decarbonised shipping future.
‘Image Courtesy of International Windship Association (IWSA) www.wid-ship.org’