EU funding for first green ammonia fuel cell project

The ShipFC project intends to retrofit a 2MW ammonia solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) aboard Eidesvik’s offshore vessel, Viking Energy. The project aims to allow the vessel to sail solely on the clean fuel for up to 3,000 hours annually, demonstrating the feasibility of long-range zero-emission voyages with high power on larger ships.

Technical goals

The goal is also to ensure that a large fuel cell can deliver total electric power to shipboards systems safely and effectively. This is the first time an ammonia-powered fuel-cell will be installed on a vessel. A significant part of the project will be the scale up of a 100-kilowatt fuel cell to 2 megawatts. The fuel cell is tested on land in a parallel project and development and construction will be undertaken by Prototech. Testing will be executed at the Sustainable Energy Norwegian Catapult Centre. The ship-side ammonia system will be supplied by Wärtsilä.

The project intends to install the ammonia fuel cell system aboard Viking Energy in late 2023.

Scaling up the SOFC to 20MW

Another part of the ShipFC project will perform studies on three other vessel types, namely offshore construction vessels and two cargo vessel types, to illustrate the ability to transfer this technology to larger segments in the shipping industry. Three ship management companies, North Sea Shipping, Capital Executive Ship Management and Star Bulk Ship Management have joined the consortium.

One of the five Catapult centres in Norway, Sustainable Energy Norwegian Catapult Centre, has responsibility for testing autonomous sustainable energy systems as well as scale-up of the ammonia fuel cell.

Ongoing collaboration

The project represents the latest stage in the long running collaboration between Equinor, Eidesvik and Wärtsilä. The three companies successfully collaborated on a number of environmental and cleantech projects over the years. Viking Energy was the first LNG powered ocean-going vessel in 2003, and Eidesvik and Wärtsilä also collaborated on the 2009-built Viking Lady, another LNG-fuelled vessel that was seen as a milestone in the transition of shipping with its installation of fuel cells and marine batteries.

Norwegian crop nutrition company Yara has been contracted to supply the green ammonia which will be produced by electrolysis and delivered to Viking Energy containerised to enable easy and safe refuelling.