Eco Marine Power and ClassNK Commence’s technical collaboration is focussed on supporting sea trials and commercial production of wind and solar power system for ships.
Technical collaboration
On November 6, In another significant move towards a commercial release of the EnergySail®, Eco Marine Power (EMP) announced a technical collaboration with ClassNK (Nippon Kaiji Kyokai) to confirm design requirements and issues related to sea trials.
The aim of this collaboration is to pave the way to the full commercial production of the EnergySail and thus complete the preparation of technologies required for EMP’s Aquarius Marine Renewable Energy or Aquarius MRE solution.
Advanced Integrated System
The patented Aquarius MRE is an advanced integrated system of rigid sails, marine-grade solar panels, energy storage modules, charging system and marine computers that will enable ships to tap into renewable energy by harnessing the power provided by the wind and sun. These sources of emission-free power will lead to lower fuel consumption on ships plus reduce CO2 emissions and the release of other noxious gases. The rigid sails developed by Eco Marine Power are known as EnergySail’s. These are automatically positioned by a computer system to best suit the prevailing weather conditions and can be lowered and stored when not in use or in bad weather.
Key areas of collaboration
Areas of collaboration between Eco Marine Power and ClassNK will include operation of the automated control system, software and hardware safety measures and installation methods.
Greg Atkinson, Chief Technology Officer at Eco Marine Power stated, “The collaboration with ClassNK is a very important part of our development strategy as we work towards verifying the operation of our EnergySail both ashore and on a ship during sea trials. We also want to make sure we don’t repeat the mistakes made during the development of previous sail-assisted or wind-assisted propulsion solutions, especially in terms of operability. From our point of view it’s not a race to be first and repeat what has been done before; instead, our focus is on innovation with an emphasis on quality and long term performance.”
Complete solution
The collaboration process includes EMP’s strategic partners Teramoto Iron Works, the Furukawa Battery Company and KEI System. Shore based testing of the EnergySail will be conducted at the Onomichi Marine Tech Test Center (MTTC) and EMP is also involved in discussions with several ship owners regarding the world’s first installation of a complete Aquarius MRE solution.
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Source: Eco Marine Power
