Electric Propulsion Firm Build-Up in Belfast

Artemis is the lead partner in the Belfast Maritime Consortium, a 13-member syndicate focused on the design and build of a new generation of zero-emission, high-speed ferries and service vessels incorporating an innovative, electric foiling propulsion arrangement.

Complementing the company’s existing premises at Lisburn, just outside Belfast, the facility on Queen’s Island will allow prototyping activities to be turned into an eFoiler production line. Two 11m workboats are already under construction at the new site, one equipped with eFoiler propulsion and one without. Tests will enable the ‘green’ propulsion system to be benchmarked against a craft with conventional gasoline power.

The 42,200ft² (3,920m³) plant on Belfast Lough will house the Artemis manufacturing and engineering teams as it brings to market its technology in application to workboats, passenger ferries, leisure craft and potentially also cater to the rising demand for fast crew transfer vessels to serve offshore wind farms. One of the aims is to make eFoiler available as a stand-alone product, suitable for retrofitting existing vessels as well as for newbuilds.

The system is based on the integration of an ultra high density, electric motor generator unit into a carbon fibre hydrofoil. The design minimises wetted surface area and drag. It claimed that drag will be reduced by 70%-plus compared with existing fast ferry forms. By realising high efficiency gains, the developers are looking to render electric propulsion commercially viable, while also giving both high speed and range.

Knowledge from the aerospace industry has a signal bearing on the entire undertaking. Bombardier Belfast, formerly aircraft manufacturer Short Brothers, is a technology partner in the Belfast Maritime Consortium. Other collaborators include Northern Ireland Advanced Composites & Engineering Centre (NIAC E), and Creative Composites.

Welcoming the UK Government’s recently published, refreshed National Shipbuilding Strategy (see The Motorship) as presenting “huge positives” for the maritime sector, Artemis CEO Dr Iain Percy called for more detail as to the operation of the planned Home Shipbuilding Credit Guarantee Scheme (HSCGS). “Key for private sector growth is a joined-up approach between export finance and UK-based finance, so that world class products made in the UK are not out-competed by finance support from competitor countries,” he suggested.

Dr Percy also referred to the company’s own long-term supply strategy of keeping all technology manufacturing on UK shores. “The key to achieving this is developing technologies that require high level skills and investment. That way, high value manufacturing jobs can be secured while still having a profitable product,” he said.