WINTECC LIFE06 ENV/D/000479 - Demonstration of an innovative wind propulsion technology for cargo vessels
Overview
Background & policy context:
Cargo shipping (driven by heavy fuel oil) is regarded as one of the main producers of climate damaging emissions. SkySails-Technology are wind propulsion systems for modern shipping. It is estimated that the market for using this technology consists of around 40 000 ships out of 90 000 on the Lloyd's Register of shipping of the world trade fleet which operate on long-range routes.
Every year large ships consume about 280 million tonnes of cheap and extremely sulphurous heavy fuel oil and, as a result, commercial shipping is the third largest source of climate-effecting toxic substances after road traffic and industrial production. Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance, London, estimates that shipping traffic is responsible for about 7% of the world wide sulphur dioxide (SOX), 11-12% of all nitrogen oxide (NOX) and 4-5% of all CO2 emissions – nearly a billion tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.
Objectives:
The WINTECC project aimed to demonstrate an innovative wind propulsion technology for cargo vessels. An automatically controlled towing kite system would be used and tested during the regular operation of a cargo vessel for the first time on a full-scale. The specific objectives were to:
- Demonstrate the energy and greenhouse gas savings achievable by the towing kite system.
- Demonstrate the practicability, profitability and durability of the technology.
- Prove that the towing kite does not exert any negative influences on the ship and its cargo.
- Demonstrate that the kite system works under different meteorological conditions (e.g. rough water).
- Evaluate the influence of the kite technology on the ships movements.
- Evaluate the accuracy of weather forecasts and the local wind situation by using a wave monitoring system to facilitate the control of the towing kite.
- Widely disseminate the project results to launch the technology.
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