This year’s conference gathered significant players from all over the world
Over 400 participants from all over the world gathered Wednesday 20. October digitally for the 6th International Conference on Maritime Hydrogen & Marine Energy.
The conference was hosted by Maria Brandsøy from Ocean Hyway Cluster and Kai Stolz from GCE Ocean Technology and based around four highly relevant topics from the maritime energy sector: Zero Emission Vessels, Energy Islands, Infrastructure and Marine Energy. 47 speakers joined in digitally from all over the world to present and share their innovations, projects, experience and knowledge with the participants.
Time to collaborate
The digital platform arranged by Apriil was designed to let the participants engage in chat rooms, create meetings, participate in interesting workshops and parallel sessions all day, including watching the speaker presentations, and they were urged to use the platform to seek out collaboration leads, and as Maria Brandsøy stated: “This is the time to collaborate.”
Lars Erik Marcussen from Heidelberg Cement has worked in the development of the world’s first zero emission bulk carrier in cooperation with Felleskjøpet which will sail along the Norwegian coast and shared his thoughts with the participants on how to make zero emission vessels profitable. He pointed out the importance of involving your key customers from the very start and to take a long-term stand.
- Because we transport over 5 million tons of cargo at sea each year, making changes for the future and decarbonizing the industry is important for us. Great cooperation and support from both private and public sectors, long term contracts, high utilization and energy efficient design are four important elements to reach our goals, Marcussen stated.
A world tour
Project consultant, Mark Purkis, from Ocean Hyway Cluster led us through a tour of the most exciting hydrogen, LOHC and ammonia projects around the world. Both existing and upcoming vessels were mentioned, like the ferry Sea Change from San Francisco powered solely by hydrogen fuel cells, the push boat Elektra in Berlin and Viridis’s ammonia powered bulk carriers which will be launched in 2024.
- Several of vessels presented have already hit the water, however there is a long way to go to achieve the net zero emissions by 2050. I hope that in five years’ time this summary will take me an entire day to complete, because that is the pace of change that is needed. Now is the time to collaborate and make green waves together, Purkis said.
Scaling up
The conference was divided into different bulks where the participants could engage in panel debates and workshops with interesting topics like the Svalbard case, Wave and Tidal Energy, Maritime Hydrogen Risk Management and How to Reach IMO 2050 Targets. The workshops were heavily visited by the participants and moderated by central players like Øystein Ulleberg from IFE, Ulf Eriksen from Statkraft and Gareth Davies from Aquatera.
The initiatives behind many of the projects presented were led by the emission goals and the need to focus on working with different pilot projects to have a solid ground with all parameters ready before scaling up.
This years’ conference was the place to be to learn about highly relevant topics and projects all over the world, share knowledge about how we can reach the climate targets, network with other significant players in the maritime industry and find solutions to a sustainable zero emission future.
Miriam Edler
Marketing Consultant
+47 993 91 599
miriam(a)hubforocean.no