{"id":4433,"date":"2024-08-13T15:07:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T14:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/portstrategy.nfdtesting.uk\/greenport\/2024\/08\/13\/exclusive-decarbonising-the-inland-waterways-with-hydrogen\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T14:10:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T13:10:40","slug":"exclusive-decarbonising-the-inland-waterways-with-hydrogen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/news\/alternative-fuels-greenport\/exclusive-decarbonising-the-inland-waterways-with-hydrogen\/","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Decarbonising the inland waterways with hydrogen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Netherlands based Future Proof Shipping offers marine transportation services to enable players across the value chain to make the transition to zero emissions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q&nbsp;What is the FPS zero emissions philosophy with regards to the inland waterways?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A<\/strong> Zero means zero!&nbsp;With regards to the sailing and fuelling of our ships, zero emissions means zero ghg emissions. All our&nbsp;vessels will be equipped with zero emissions propulsion systems.<\/p>\n<p>Our founder Huib van de Grijspaarde is a visionary who wants to accelerate the green transformation of&nbsp;shipping and he decided to start Future Proof Shipping with that objective.<\/p>\n<p>There was a lot of research and&nbsp;studies involved and it was decided to start with H2 and inland. An important part of this journey has been&nbsp;Nike. They really want to improve the Co2 footprint of their logistics and were prepared to take the leap&nbsp;and work with us on H2 Barge 1.<\/p>\n<p>We set out to prove that zero emissions could be achieved in inland shipping and set the standard for the&nbsp;entire shipping industry.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q Why is hydrogen so well suited to inland waterways vessels?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A<\/strong> It provides clean power. Hydrogen offers the required power density and ease of operation in&nbsp;combination with a large hydrogen production, storage and distribution network which is being worked on&nbsp;throughout the Benelux and Germany; especially in the areas in which inland shipping plays a big role&nbsp;(Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam &amp; Duisburg region).<\/p>\n<p>The beauty of H2 is that it allows us to reach zero emissions while other fuels offer only an improvement.<\/p>\n<p>We see that our vessels are almost silent and clean and this is very much appreciated by the crew members.&nbsp;As the European Commission pointed out in one of their videos about us, H2 is part of a silent revolution.<\/p>\n<p>To secure our energy supply, we signed a long-term contract with green hydrogen supplier, Air Liquide.<\/p>\n<p>As part of the agreement, Air Liquide will supply carbon-free hydrogen through specially designed&nbsp;multi-modal hydrogen storage suited for inland barges. The newly designed storage will be&nbsp;homologated with the support of notified bodies and will pave the way to make this new market a&nbsp;reality.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q Please explain the background to the H2 barge projects, with a particular focus on refuelling&nbsp;infrastructure needed<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A<\/strong> In some ways, we could consider the journey to H2 Barge 1 almost a journey of four years, our engineers and&nbsp;experts have worked intensively in the concept design, testing, data analysis. We have developed unique&nbsp;expertise and we are now in a perfect position to help others with our consultants.<\/p>\n<p>Being the first meant we had to overcome quite some difficulties. Lack of suitable parts and easily available&nbsp;materials, no proper legislation in place etc. we had to develop everything in close cooperation with the&nbsp;main partners involved in the project (i.e. Holland Shipyards, Koedood, Oechies and Air Liquide)<\/p>\n<p>Refueling has been proven to be very easy and has not caused any issues or incidents since the vessels are&nbsp;sailing. It requires some proper planning with the H2 supplier, but nothing that is really complicated.<\/p>\n<p>Our&nbsp;partner Air Liquide has been very cooperative and supportive, even when the planning of the vessel is&nbsp;sometimes a challenge due to external factors (strike at the locks etc).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q What new projects are on the horizon for FPS?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A<\/strong> H2 Barge 1 and H2 Barge 2 are sailing fully zero emissions. We currently own two more diesel barges&nbsp;that we will retrofit, and the next phases will be planned later this year. Based on the experience gained,&nbsp;we are discussing the various components and processes to continuously improve.<\/p>\n<p>This is important not just&nbsp;for us, but for all players that want to retrofit their vessels and ask us for support. We have the DNA of a&nbsp;company that wants to continuously learn and optimise, and we often go back to our desks and perform&nbsp;analysis of our data: we are now in a unique position because of this approach and want to develop this&nbsp;further.<\/p>\n<p>FPS is truly in a scale-up phase: we are stabilising our internal processes and operating systems and&nbsp;reflecting on all the learnings we have so far to accelerate moving forward.<\/p>\n<p>We are now active as&nbsp;consultants where we see our expertise is also requested in short sea projects, we still have to plan for the&nbsp;coming inland vessels, and we are investigating how we can leverage our unique data position to support&nbsp;others.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q What is\/are your take home message(s) for our readers?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A<\/strong> The challenge of the green transformation of shipping is not only technological. We want to have a&nbsp;cooperative approach with all actors in the supply chain, from shipping lines to terminal operators,&nbsp;forwarders and other logistic solution providers. It is our belief that working together we can really&nbsp;accelerate such an important transition.<\/p>\n<p>One of the key factors is mobilising demand: a client like Nike has&nbsp;been instrumental in the change, and we need others to follow with the same ambition for our planet and&nbsp;passion for sustainability.<\/p>\n<p>Our dream is to see an industry that moves forward all together with determination and pace. For our&nbsp;planets and our kids we would hope to see quite a few more H2 vessels, both owned by FPS, but also&nbsp;vessels that we helped others to develop.<\/p>\n<p>But to get there, we believe it is extremely important that all of us&nbsp;as consumers start asking for green transportation solutions, maybe being prepared to pay a little more to&nbsp;support the new technologies, but valuing the impact that these steps can have on the society as a whole.<\/p>\n<div class=\"h-rule\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<h3><strong>What is special about H2 Barge 1?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The HS Barge 1 is the first inland container vessel in the world to run 100% on green hydrogen.<\/p>\n<p>Since the hydrogen is created using clean energy (making it green\/zero carbon hydrogen), the&nbsp;H\u2082 Barge \u201d will have zero Carbon Dioxide (CO\u2082) emissions.<\/p>\n<p>There is no diesel on-board nor any back-up generators that run on diesel. Batteries are used&nbsp;as back-up.<\/p>\n<p>H2 Barge 1 is the first inland vessel of its kind to have 875 kW of installed fuel cell capacity&nbsp;on board and nearly one tonne of hydrogen on board, operating commercially, and crossing&nbsp;national borders.<\/p>\n<p>The vessel is now propelled by an 800kW electric motor, which is one of the world\u2019s largest&nbsp;electric motors installed on an inland vessel. The old engine was donated to the STC Naval School&nbsp;for future students and sailors to learn from.<\/p>\n<p>It is also the first vessel to receive the A-Zero (A0) label.&nbsp;This is the Dutch label system for inland waterway vessels and is the environmental label for the vessels that meet&nbsp;certain emission limits.<\/p>\n<p>The Label system for inland vessels is based on classification for air pollutant emission performance expressed in average gram per kWh for&nbsp;the vessel: (NOx, PM) ranging between 0 and 5, linked to emission limits from CCNR II and&nbsp;different Stage V options.<\/p>\n<p>Classification for greenhouse gas emission performance is expressed in average gram per kWh&nbsp;for the vessel (CO2, CH4) with a linear range between A and E The classification is therefore a&nbsp;2-dimensional table. Where A is zero climate emissions and 0 means no air pollutants are emitted by the vessel.<\/p>\n<p>H2 Barge 1 was the first to reach this performance using FC technology in combination with green&nbsp;hydrogen.&nbsp;H2 Barge 2 also has the A0 label.<\/p>\n<p>Its design enables H2 Barge 1 to reduce CO2 emissions by nearly 2,000 tonnes of CO2e per year. This removes the need for 22 trucks going 24\/7 from the road.<\/p>\n<p>The amount of hydrogen used is equal to the use of hydrogen of 80 city buses. To compensate&nbsp;this amount of CO2 we would have to plant 80,000 trees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this Q&amp;A we sit down with\u00a0Sara Ravazza, managing director,\u00a0Future Proof Shipping, to talk hydrogen and the future of the inland waterways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":4434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1376,22],"tags":[40,1669,720,10,274],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-4433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alternative-fuels-greenport","category-greenport-exclusive","category-products-services-greenport","tag-alternative-fuels","tag-fps","tag-future-proof-shipping","tag-hydrogen","tag-inland-waterways"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4435,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4433\/revisions\/4435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4433"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=4433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}