Three-year UK wing sail development project

The collaborative three-year programme has received by a £3.2m investment from the private sector, alongside a grant of £1.8m from Scottish Enterprise.

Over the course of the project SGS will initially test its FastRig wing sails at a land based site at Peel Ports Hunterston Port and Resource Centre in collaboration with Clyde-based specialist engineering partner Malin. Following successful land based tests, a demonstrator on board a vessel is expected to be tested by 2023.

Over the course of the project, SGS will further develop its weather routing TradeWind software to create route plans for wind optimisation. 

Major industry partners include Drax, Malin, Peel Ports and LR, who, alongside SGS’s naval architects, consulted with crews and marine engineers, and have already optimised the technology and design to ensure easy retrofitting and cargo access during port operations.

Lloyd’s Register has granted 1st stage Approval in Principle for the FastRig technology.

The Motorship previously noted in January 2021 that Drax, operator of the UK’s biggest power station, was interested in the potential fuel savings offered by fitting a 229m, 67,657dwt biomass carrier with FastRig wingsails.

Tom Wolodarsky, Technical Authority for Wind Propulsion Systems, Lloyd’s Register said: “LR is dedicated to supporting the development and safe adoption of green technologies that will contribute to decarbonising the maritime sector and the FastRig wing sail technology will help shipowners with the transition ahead. We have now successfully completed the 1st stage of Approval in Principle of the technology which can assist in providing assurance to industry and demonstrate WAPS technology is a safe, viable option which follows well established, independent standards.”

Modelling tests of the FastRig technology, undertaken by SGS in conjunction with the University of Southampton’s Wolfson Unit, show that the technology could create at least at least 20% fuel savings and GHG reductions for retrofits, with as much as 50% fuel savings possible for small and medium sized new build ships.

The three-year project will address barriers to wider industry uptake to the technology, with a host of technical, digital and financing solutions. In addition to creating agreements with renewables finance providers to fund installations of the technology onboard ships, the SGS team is developing insurance products that will give confidence of predictable financial returns to commercial operators.

The FastRigs technology has been developed alongside industry, with a year-long InnovateUK and Institute of Mechanical Engineers-backed  feasibility study in 2018 and in-depth consultations with the wider shipping industry to overcome obstacles to adopting the innovation, including funding mechanisms. SGS developed its digital tools to predict and optimise wind-use in shipping in collaboration with the European Space Agency business incubation centre in 2019.