Reducing pollution from the sea does not only mean building fully electric ships, but also and above all trying to reduce emissions from boats that are currently impossible in fully electric boats. An important share of these emissions comes from journeys in port or from ships that are waiting offshore, often for days.
Maersk Supply Service, part of the Danish naval giant Maersk, is launching Stillstrom, a new subsidiary dedicated to the development of offshore electric charging buoys. The buoy would be directly connected to wind farms, or even to the mainland, to allow ships to dock and recharge batteries on board. The energy stored would be used for all operations on board, allowing the endothermic engines to be turned off and, in the case of hybrid ships, also providing propulsion for maneuvers near the mainland.
Stillstrom
The Danish wind giant Ørsted will collaborate on the project, presenting a buoy by the third quarter of 2022, with which it will feed its SOV (Service Operations Vessels). Ørsted itself will take care of the integration of the charging point into the network, and will make public the intellectual properties generated during the design.
Program manager at Maersk Supply Service, Sebastian Klasterer Toft, made the study’s objectives clear: “The mission is to remove 5.5 million tonnes of CO2 within five years of commercial launch, further eliminating particulates, nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides “.
° BLOG ° Gabriele Romano 