MPA, SMI co-fund 3 consortiums for harbour craft electrification

This will support Singapore’s plans of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the maritime transport sector.

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and the Singapore Maritime Institute (SMI) awarded funding to three consortiums, comprising 30 enterprises and research institutions to research, to develop and operate a fully electric harbour craft in the next five years.

The three consortiums will be led by Keppel FELS Limited, SeaTech Solutions, and Sembcorp Marine.

The MPA and SMI said in a joint release that these pilot projects “will demonstrate both commercial and technical viability of specific use cases for full-electric harbour craft and will support Singapore’s broader plans to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions by the maritime transport sector.”

“To build a sustainable hub port, we plan for the 1,600 harbour craft operating in our waters to run on low-carbon fuels. One possible solution is the electrification of our harbour craft fleet, which reduces carbon emissions and has zero pollution,” Senior Minister of State for Transport Chee Hong Tat said.

The funding for these projects, which will tap on the MPA’s Maritime GreenFuture Fund, will allow various technologies and charging infrastructures to be studied and be deployed in different types of harbour craft and operating profiles. These will be through the use cases proposed by the consortiums which involve two passenger ferries of different capacities and a lighter craft.

The MPA and SMI in September 2020 called for proposals for the electrification of harbour craft.

In a separate release, Keppel O&M, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Keppel FELS said, as the overall systems integrator, it will lead the retrofitting of a 30-pax passenger ferry to convert it to be electric-powered. It said that its Floating Living Lab will be used to test the electric vessel charging infrastructure.

Keppel added that it will tap on the coalition composed of DNV, Energy Research Institute @ Nanyang Technological University, Eng Hup Shipping, Envision Digital, Surbana Jurong, and the Technology Centre for Offshore and Marine, Singapore, to develop marine and land-based charging infrastructure, interoperable standards for Singapore, and marinized Energy Storage System to power the harbour craft.