Goal Zero consortium to develop fully electric cargo vessel for MPA

The Goal Zero consortium has been awarded funding by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and Singapore Maritime Institute (SMI) to develop, deploy and commercialise a fully electric cargo vessel.

The consortium received one of three grants awarded by MPA and SMI on 5 August 2021, with consortiums led by Keppel FELS Limited and Sembcorp Marine receiving the other two grants.

Malaysian energy infrastructure and technology company Yinson Holdings Berhad, through its subsidiary Yinson Green Technologies Pte (YGT) will be in charge of overall programme management and commercialization.

On the other hand, Singapore-based marine design engineering company Seatech Solutions International Pte is the lead of the consortium, developing the vessel design and system integration. 

Furthermore, the consortium is joined by Sterling PBES Energy Solutions as the battery technology partner, Rina Hong Kong Limited Singapore Branch as classification society, Singapore Institute of Technology and Technology Centre for Offshore and Marine Singapore as institutes of higher learning and research institutes developing the digital twin.

“We are looking to develop a new ecosystem and business model that are significantly more sustainable for the harbour craft industry whilst simultaneously being more commercially attractive for vessel owners and operators,” Yinson Executive Vice President New Ventures and Technology Eirik Barclay commented.

“For example, swappable battery charging infrastructure could almost completely eliminate vessel charging downtime, and digital twin technology can improve efficiencies that bring down operational costs.”

To remind, a digital twin is a dynamic digital representation of an object or a system describing its characteristics and properties as a set of equations.

It can be used in the maritime sector for fleet optimisation, port optimisation, and end-to-end supply chain optimisation.

MPA’s and SMI’s joint call for proposals, which was issued in September 2020, attracted strong interest from the maritime community with 73 companies and 10 institutes of higher learning submitting a total of 16 proposals.

The three consortiums will embark on the research, design, build and operations of fully electric harbour craft over the next five years.

The electrification pilot projects will demonstrate both the commercial and technical viability of specific use cases for fully electric harbour craft.

“Electrification has the potential to accelerate the decarbonisation of our local harbour craft industry,” Quah Ley Hoon, Chief Executive, MPA, concluded.