MOL to cooperate in future ship trial of J-ENGs two-stroke H2 engine

The ship will be operated by MOL and MOL Drybulk. The engine is being developed by J-ENG as part of a research consortium with Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Yanmar, as previously reported by The Motorship. The engine builder expects that the engine will be the first low-speed, two-stroke hydrogen-fuelled marine engine to reach the market, where it will targeted at large ocean-going vessels as well as coastal vessels. 

The Motorship notes that the timeline for the ship trial was not clarified in the release: the engine research consortium previously announced plans to bring a range of low-, medium- and high-speed engine solutions to market by 2025. 

J-ENG has been carrying out early stage research into hydrogen combustion for some years, and launched a research project into the combustion properties of hydrogen and ammonia with NMRI in 2019, as reported by The Motorship.

The engine development project is receiving assistance from Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), part of Green Innovation Funding Program.

The MOL Group has previously announced that it aims to deploy net zero emissions ocean-going vessels into its fleet in the current decade, and has a longer term objective of achieving net zero GHG emissions by 2050.