New e-fuels project to make international shipping climate neutral

The Gamma project began in January 2024 and will run for five years. The innovation project has received €13 million in support from the European Commission’s Horizon Europe framework programme for innovation.

The total budget is €17 million, and Gamma stands for Green Ammonia and Biomethanol fuel MAritime Vessels and involves 16 partners from Europe:

Verkís (Iceland), ANT Topic (Italy), Fraunhofer (Germany), Aurelia (Netherlands), Ballard (Denmark), Sea Green Engineering (Italy), Energy Cluster Denmark (Denmark), SINTEF (Norway), Solbian (Italy), Amethyste (France), Elkon Elektrik (Turkey), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), ARM Engineering (France), RINA (Germany), Amnis Pura (Portugal) and Dotcom (Italy).

The unique technologies

In the GAMMA project companies and researchers from Europe will develop and convert a bulk carrier to sail on climate-neutral fuels and green power.

An innovative fuel system will be installed. Ammonia and green methanol will be bunkered on-to the ship and then converted into hydrogen with cracker and reformer technologies. The hydrogen will be purified and then converted into electricity with a fuel cell, which will be providing electric energy to the vessel and thus replacing the use of the auxiliary generators running on fossil fuel.

In addition to that, the partners have gone further, since part of the energy necessary to convert to hydrogen will be supplied by renewable energy, in this case PV panels, which will be installed on the hatch covers of the bulk carrier.

The green transition

Today, long-distance maritime transport supports 80-90 per cent of all global trade. Therefore, there will be considerable potential for climate-beneficial reductions in converting ocean-going transportation to green fuels. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has set a goal for the maritime sector to reduce the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions to around net-zero by 2050.

The five-year GAMMA project will contribute to this, say representatives from the start-up company Aurelia, which specialises in the concept design of climate-friendly vessels.