Danish Group Establishes Testing and Validation for Emerging Fuels
The Danish ShippingLab, a joint industry initiative aimed at supporting advancements in digitalization, autonomous shipping, and environment-friendly technology, announced a new program designed to support the transition to sustainable fuels in the marine industry. The project is going to create a platform for testing and validating new fuel solutions that can aid in significantly reducing or eliminating GHG emissions from the shipping industry.
“New sustainable fuels are needed, but in practice, it is a great challenge to create a new product,” says Kjeld Dittmann, Chairman for ShippingLab. Dittmann has no doubt that the overview created by the new platform will make a positive difference for both the manufacturers of new fuels and the industry as a whole. “The joint forces of the partners will ease the clarification on various directions and solutions. The validation platform will facilitate a joint effort and reduce the likelihood of missing out on solutions with high potential environmental and costs impact.”
The purpose of the platform is to assist the global transition towards sustainable marine fuels by creating a bridge between prospective suppliers of sustainable fuels and the marine industry. According to ShippingLab, the project aims to develop a permanent platform for testing and validation of green fuels, which will help suppliers of sustainable fuels better understand the needs and requirements of the shipping world.
The first step will be to gather the relevant stakeholders to establish which validation points are required in the shipping industry and to map which facilities are already available in this regard. If the mapping shows a gap between facilities and validation requirements, these gaps will be addressed in independent development projects with participation from the relevant stakeholders.
Among the industry leaders that will be participating in the project is the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping, Alfa Laval, MAN Energy Solutions, DS Norden, A.P. Møller – Mærsk, and the supplier of biofuel MASH Energy. The development of the platform is also being supported by the Danish Maritime Fund.
The platform will facilitate a number of test and validation services for sustainable fuels to ensure that the required information within technical, regulatory, environmental, and financial dimensions and demands is available to clarify if a potential sustainable fuel can become a product potentially traded in large volumes within the maritime industry.
These services will be provided by existing test and validation facilities at either commercial or academic organizations. The ShippingLab explains that the sustainable fuel testing and validation platform should not be regarded as a new competitor in the market, but as a platform that links producers with the relevant facilities for providing the necessary data about their sustainable fuels.