NAA Member News: LiNa wins and leads £0.52M maritime DfT grant working with Bibby Marine
LiNa Energy is proud to announce that on 1st September 2021 it launched a £0.52M project, funded by the UK Department for Transport, delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.
Project LiNa Wave will last seven months, led by LiNa and includes Bibby Marine and Lancaster University as partners. The consortium will demonstrate the commercial and technical viability of LiNa’s safe, low-cost sodium battery technology in maritime applications.
LiNa is proud to continue its tradition of successful collaborations with Lancaster University in this project. LiNa is also tremendously excited to start working with Bibby Marine, a key maritime-industry player. Their fleet includes the award-winning Bibby WaveMaster that offers the safest access to wind turbines combined with the highest standard of living at sea. Bibby Marine is a subsidiary of Bibby Line Group, a £1 billion global business, operating in 16 countries, employing 4,000 people in sectors including retail, financial services, distribution, marine and construction equipment hire.
The need for solutions that deliver zero-emission shipping is acute. Maritime transport globally emits around 940 million tonnes of CO2, responsible for about 2.5% of global greenhouse gas; the European Commission projects an increase of between 50% and 250% by 2050, enough to undermine Paris Agreement targets.
Shipowners seeking to transition from fossil fuels have started to deploy Lithium-ion battery (LiB) systems in hybrid vessels, but their use remains largely confined to providing auxiliary power and backing up conventional diesel generators, with minimal impact on maritime CO2 emissions. Deployment of LiB solutions is hampered by safety, cost, recycling and supply-chain problems. Other solutions such as hydrogen fuel cells or switching to bio-fuels could reduce fossil-fuel use, but require enormous port-infrastructure investment for refuelling and maintenance, so take-up is likely to advance slowly.
Project LiNa-Wave will show how LiNa’s sodium-based battery can deliver a realistic and significant decrease to maritime GHG emissions. The battery is made from cheap, abundant, inert, materials that have been proven to be extremely safe.
Project LiNa Wave is part of the Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition, funded by the Department for Transport and delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.
Announced in March 2020, and part of the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan to position the UK at the forefront of green shipbuilding and maritime technology, the Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition is a £20m investment from government alongside a further c.£10mfrom industry to reduce emissions from the maritime sector. The programme is supporting 55 projects across the UK, including projects in Scotland, Northern Ireland and from the South West to the North East of England. As set out in the Clean Maritime Plan (2019), Government funding has been used to support early stage research relating to clean maritime. The programme will be used to support the research, design and development of zero emission technology and infrastructure solutions for maritime and to accelerate decarbonisation in the sector.
Gene Lewis, LiNa CEO “The maritime sector must drastically reduce its CO2 emissions. LiNa’s unique sodium batteries offer amazing potential in this huge global market. We are honoured to be working with a prestigious end-user such as Bibby Marine, a leading player and driving force in getting this sector to adopt new clean technologies. We’re equally excited to continue working with our friends at Lancaster University.
Also, a big thanks to the Department of Transport for recognising the potential of our battery systems and giving us the opportunity to showcase our ground breaking technology in this exciting and very important project”
