Ulster | Hydrogen

Ulster  |  Hydrogen

DFDS Seaways, DFDS Logistics, JG Maritime Solutions, Larne Harbour and Mutual Energy, the project has been successful in securing funding as part of the Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition Round 4 (CMDC4), funded by the UK Department for Transport (DfT) and delivered by Innovate UK. CMDC4 is part of the Department’s UK Shipping Office for Reducing Emissions (UK SHORE) programme, a £206m initiative focused on developing the technology necessary to decarbonise the UK domestic maritime sector.

The project will investigate the feasibility of establishing an ‘NI/GB Green Shipping Corridor’ between Northern Ireland and the Northwest of England using a roll on / roll off (ro-ro) freight ferry, powered by hydrogen reformed onboard from green methanol delivered in road mobile ISO tank containers. The green methanol would be synthesised in the Port of Larne from green hydrogen and carbon dioxide as part of the Ballylumford Power-to-X Project.

The project includes the feasibility of capturing CO2 from an onboard reformer and returning it to the methanol synthesis plant in the same tank containers that delivered the methanol, thereby setting up a circular CO2 economy that avoids future supply constraint of green CO2. The port-based flexible green methanol plant will use otherwise curtailed wind power to drive a 150MWe electrolyser that feeds green hydrogen through a pipeline to a catalytic reactor.

The Domestic Green Shipping Corridor would have ‘true-zero’ emissions, would not be reliant upon limited supplies of bio-derived CO2 or direct air-captured CO2 and would not need any carbon offsetting to meet net zero objectives.

The performance of the new technology will first be simulated using techno-economic modelling of the Green Shipping Corridor, which includes details of the latest ro-ro freight ferry design from partner DFDS Seaways, Europe’s largest ro-ro freight ferry operator, and then followed up by pre-deployment trials at the Port of Larne, also a project partner.

Methanol Shipping