Windcat Offshore orders two hydrogen-fuelled workboats
After piloting a first hydrogen-fuelled crew transfer vessel earlier this year, Windcat Offshore now aims to extend the use of hydrogen propulsion to Commissioning Service Operation Vessels (CSOVs) by 2025.
PHOTO: Design concept of Windcat Offshore’s Commissioning Service Operation Vessels (CSOVs). Windcat Workboats
A CSOV is designed and built for commissioning service, maintenance, and operational needs of the offshore wind industry.
The new vessels have been designed by Dutch shipbuilding company Damen Shipyards in collaboration with Windcat and CMB.TECH.
The two vessels will be built at the Ha Long Shipyard in Vietnam, and Windcat may increase the order size in future, it says.
The vessels utilise the same dual fuel hydrogen propulsion technology that Windcat's crew transfer vessel Hydrocat 48 utilises. Notably, the company claims Hydrocat 48, which it introduced with CMB.TECH at the World Hydrogen Summit in May this year, to be the world’s first hydrogen powered vessel of its kind.
Other companies have also been pursuing hydrogen as an alternative fuel to attain net zero emissions. The Hydra ferry operated by Norwegian shipowner Norled will become the first ferry powered by proton-exchange membrane fuel cells operating on liquid hydrogen when its first sea trials begin in December this year.
Although these small-scale hydrogen vessels are unlikely to make much of a difference in reducing global greeenhouse gas emissions, they can provide valuable technical and operational experiences for developers of bigger hydrogen-fuelled vessels.
By Tuhin Roy
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