Completed Clean Energy Engineering

TransShip II - RV Prince Madog Hydrogen Retrofit

Funder InnovateUK (part of UKRI)
Recipient organisation O.s. Energy (UK) LTD
Funding £4.2M
Period Mar 2023 — Mar 2025

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A research vessel will run on compressed hydrogen, producing zero emissions during its scientific missions at sea. The project tackles a specific problem: maritime vessels are heavy carbon emitters, and no research ship of this kind has been retrofitted to run on hydrogen at this scale before. The vessel, RV Prince Madog, currently burns conventional fuel for propulsion. The retrofit will install hydrogen storage, a fuel cell, and a battery system integrated with the existing drive train. This allows slow-speed, silent operation from zero-emission fuel. The project will also fit a nature-inspired propeller and duct design to cut the vessel's energy demand. A marine bunkering facility will supply the hydrogen needed to decarbonise the vessel's research and teaching activities. If successful, this demonstration could show that existing ships can be converted to hydrogen power, not just built from scratch. That matters for the maritime industry, which is under pressure to reach net zero. The UK supply chain and shipbuilding skills would gain a visible, world-first reference project. The demonstration is planned for 2025.

View original technical description
TransShip II will demonstrate the use of compressed hydrogen to propel the research and survey vessel RV Prince Madog with zero emission during its operation as a world leading maritime science platform. The project will install hydrogen storage, fuel cell and battery system and integrate this with the existing drive train to provide slow speed and silent operation up to 6knots from zero emission fuel. Simultaneously, the project will install innovative, nature-inspired propeller and duct design on the vessel aiming to reduce the energy requirement of the vessel significantly. The project will install a marine bunkering facility capable of supplying sufficient hydrogen to the Prince Madog to decarbonise its research and teaching activities which will be demonstrated through project demonstration and commercial operation of the vessel. This will be a world's first at this scale of refit and operation, highlighting the skills of the UK maritime industry and supply chain and further strengthen the UKs position in a maritime industry with global potential and rapid drive to net zero. The demonstration of the project outcome is currently planned between May and July 2025.

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Related Research

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Retrofittable Propulsion System for Electric Vessels with Hydrogen Range Extender.
Transition to hydrogen powered ocean-going and short-sea shipping with enabling retrofit technologies (TransShip)
Demonstrator for scalable 1MW+ Zero Emission battery-hydrogen hybrid propulsion system
Marine Small-ship Zero-carbon H2 Demonstrator with Innovative Port-manoeuvring
Hydrogen in an Integrated Maritime Energy Transition (HIMET)

Original classification

Collaborative R&D

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.