Winners from the UK’s Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition were announced this week, with Transport Secretary Grant Shapps saying over 55 green shipping projects will share £23m in government funding for development of their clean tech. The announcement coincides with the London International Shipping Week – which the government says is the ‘greenest’ iteration ever.
Among the winners is the first ever green submarine study, and shipping charging points powered by offshore wind turbines – opening the door for electric shipping vessels to enter the country’s fleet.
The green submarine project – developed by Oceanways – paves the way for a ‘net positive’ submarine fleet that would use green hydrogen as a fuel. Not only will it drastically reduce emissions from these vessels, but the new models can collect microplastics from the water as it travels – allowing them to actively remove pollutants from our waters.
MJR Power & Automation are behind the charging point scheme, which the government projects could save up to 131,100 tonnes of CO2 every year, the equivalent of removing over 62,000 cars from our roads.
“As a proud island nation built on our maritime prowess, it is only right that we lead by example when it comes to decarbonising the sector and building back greener,” said Shapps at the announcement, which took place in Greenwich. “The projects announced today showcase the best of British innovation, revolutionising existing technology and infrastructure to slash emissions, create jobs and get us another step closer to our decarbonisation targets.”
The news also follows the formal opening of the UK’s ‘greenest cruise terminal’ at the port of Southampton. An industry first, the site uses a combination of solar panel roofing and clean energy shore power plug-in charging for ships.
The Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition was launched in March this year as part of the Government’s 10 point plan for green industrial revolution, and intends to accelerate the shipping industry towards its net-zero target by 2025.
“As the cruising sector bounces back from the pandemic, it’s important that our environmental commitments are at the heart of everything we do,” said Maritime Minister Robert Courts. “Building state-of-the-art green infrastructure at cruise terminals helps us move towards cleaner cruising, creating more spaces for these ships to dock and putting us on track to hit net zero by 2050.”
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