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Harnessing wind power for international shipping

By: Chloe Emanuel 19/03/2024 WingTek

Equipment General Vessels Windfarms

Bristol-based maritime engineering start-up WingTek, in collaboration with the National Composites Centre and the University of Bristol, has won a £2.2m innovation grant. Awarded under the UK Department for Transport Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition, the funding from Innovate UK is to develop further the WingTek Wingsail, a unique Wind Auxiliary Propulsion (WAP) system designed to be retrofitted easily to existing commercial vessels.

Wind Auxiliary Propulsion is a technology that complements existing ship propulsion systems; primarily the marine diesel engines burning fossil fuels which power vessels of all types across the global fleet. WAP enables significant reductions in fuel use and therefore harmful emissions from these ships.

Neil Richards, WingTek Managing Director, said: “WingTek’s innovative Wind Auxiliary Propulsion system has received a significant boost thanks to the help and support of Innovate UK leading to this grant. We are delighted to be working with a fantastic set of project partners at the University of Bristol and the National Composites Centre and we are now well supported to fast-track the development on the route to commercial production. Think of this as a renewable energy fuel saver for commercial ships. Wind is free and available across the planet and can be harnessed by the world’s existing shipping fleets to reduce its consumption of fossil fuels.”

The project will deliver two full-size operational prototypes, one on-shore for long-term testing and development and a second unit installed on a commercial UK vessel for sea-trials, with the project scheduled to complete by March 2025. There are around 55,000 commercial ships in excess of 5,000 tonnes worldwide, burning an estimated 250 million tonnes of fossil fuels annually.

InnovateUK has awarded the “Wings for Ships” project led by WingTek Ltd a grant of £2.2m under the UK Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition Round 3 (CMDC3), for wind-assisted ship propulsion development aimed at helping the shipping industry reach Net Zero by 2050. Under the grant, project partners The University of Bristol (UoB) and Bristol-based National Composites Centre (NCC) will work with WingTek to deliver two prototype wingsails for the project.

The National Composites Centre will contribute its knowledge and expertise in composite design and structural analysis in the development of the two demonstration prototypes. The University of Bristol will provide their expertise in 2D and 3D computational fluid modelling of aerodynamics, wind tunnel facilities for physical model testing and energy system modelling.

For more information about offshore wind farm projects across the globe, click here.

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Harnessing wind power for international shipping

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