In focus: Energy transition is not moving forward – it is leaping towards net-zero goal

Not long has passed since the first industry and governmental commitments to making concrete moves towards cleaner energy and shipping sectors. The road of the global energy transition started with pledges and strategies, and is planned to end in a greener, cleaner world – with all that needs to be done to get there being in the middle. This week brought numerous examples of exactly those actions that prove energy transition is what is happening right here, right now.

Clean fuel developments are now “spreading” from the transportation sector to other markets and sub-markets, as a recent project from the subsea realm shows, where SEA-KIT International secured funding to install a hydrogen fuel cell on its 12-metre unmanned surface vehicle (USV) Maxlimer.

The project, funded by the UK’s Department for Transport (DfT) and in collaboration with InnovateUK, will showcase a diesel to hydrogen conversion of the USV design. This application of a hydrogen fuel source to a USV will be a world first, according to SEA-KIT.

In the wider maritime sector, new clean fuel and decarbonisation projects continue to emerge, with one of the latest being the development of “a flexible, future-ready and modular” concept for a future multi-fuel electric liquefied natural gas carrier (LNGC), which has brought together the classification society ABS, Hudong–Zhonghua Shipbuilding (HZS), and the technology company Wärtsilä.

The partners plan to optimise the entire vessel design around a compact, electrified, integrated and efficient propulsion power solution that will deliver a significant CO2 reduction immediately, and be ready to efficiently integrate new technologies in the future in order to stay ahead of the requirements of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO’s) Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII), supporting the industry’s ambitious towards zero-emission shipping.

Furthermore, the shipping sector will also see British oil and gas company BP and Japanese shipping major NYK Line collaborating on future fuels and transportation solutions to help the sector’s decarbonisation, after the two companies signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) this week.

Under the MOU, BP and NYK Line will collaborate and identify opportunities to help transition from current marine fuels to alternatives such as LNG, biofuels, and methanol, and to develop future fuels such as ammonia and hydrogen.

Efforts on the maritime sector’s decarbonisation are coming from the offshore wind industry, too, as five UK projects using offshore wind solutions for this purpose have won GBP 3.3 million (around EUR 3.9 million) through the Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition, funded by the UK Department for Transport and delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.

The projects include a feasibility study into establishing a National Clean Maritime Demonstration Hub in ABP’s Grimsby docks – the world’s largest offshore wind operations and maintenance (O&M) port, a world-first offshore vessel charging system taking power from an offshore wind farm, as well as the development of an offshore wind power barge that can provide vessel-to-vessel charging capability.

Offshore wind is also increasingly becoming one of the leading renewable energy technologies oil and gas companies are including in their project portfolios, with major players now competing in global tenders to build offshore wind farms, one of the latest being the first floating wind tender in France, where Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies have been shortlisted for the tendering procedure. Equinor has qualified for the tender as a sole entity, while Shell and TotalEnergies will be competing as part consortia.

The oil and gas sector, some of whose solutions have helped develop the offshore wind technology and methodology, is now getting the favour returned with the recruitment of experienced professionals from this renewable energy industry as part of the moving forward with their energy transition plans.

This week, BP announced it had elected a former CEO of RWE’s renewable business to head its gas and low carbon energy business as the current head is leaving at the end of the year and as BP progresses with its plans to transform from an international oil and gas company into an integrated energy company.

US oil and gas majors ExxonMobil and Chevron also made headlines this week as they – together with nine other partners – decided to bring their collective and diverse industry expertise in support of a large-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the Houston area. These collective efforts could capture and store approximately 50 million metric tons of CO2 per year by 2030.

Eleven companies have expressed interest in supporting the large-scale deployment of CCS technology in Houston. Calpine, Chevron, Dow, ExxonMobil, INEOS, Linde, LyondellBasell, Marathon Petroleum, NRG Energy, Phillips 66 and Valero have agreed to begin discussing plans that could lead to capturing and safely storing up to 50 million metric tons of CO2 per year by 2030 and about 100 million metric tons by 2040.

If CCS technology is fully implemented at the Houston-area facilities these 11 companies operate, nearly 75 million metric tons of CO2 could be captured and stored per year by 2040. There are ongoing discussions with other companies that have industrial operations in the area to add even more CO2 capture capacity. They could announce their support at a later date and add further momentum toward the city of Houston’s ambitions to be carbon neutral by 2050.

Although renewables will continue to play an important role in a lower-carbon energy future, CCS is one of the few proven technologies that could enable some industry sectors to decarbonise, such as manufacturing and heavy industry.

In addition to that, renewable projects incorporating other technologies, such as hydrogen production, will undoubtedly give the energy transition even more momentum.

Such a project has recently been awarded EU funding, with Scottish Orbital Marine Power set to lead a pan-European consortium working to accelerate the commercial deployment of floating tidal energy.

The consortium will receive €20.5 million of grant support from the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme to develop a multi-vector energy system that will combine predictable floating tidal energy, wind generation, grid export, battery storage and green hydrogen production.

The project will see the installation of the next iteration of the Orbital turbine, integrated with a hydrogen production facility and battery storage at the European Marine Energy Centre’s (EMEC) Fall of Warness tidal test site off Eday in Orkney.