Singapore port authority selects 11 proposals for electric harbour craft design project

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) has selected 11 design proposals to proceed to the next stage of a project that aims to introduce a new type of fully electric harbour craft into service.

The 11 proposals were selected out of a total of 55 submitted by 32 international and local companies and consortia. Participants had submitted designs that featured optimised aluminium hull forms, high energy density batteries with active liquid cooling, and battery thermal detection and protection systems among others.

Several participants have also proposed business models to optimise the harbour craft resource at the sector-level while lowering overall total cost of ownership to individual companies. These proposals aim to encourage more companies, especially those with smaller fleet sizes, to make the transition to electric craft by presenting viable business cases.

The evaluation panel has completed the evaluation of all the proposals and the MPA has shortlisted a total of 11 passenger launch and cargo lighter vessel designs submitted by seven companies and consortia.

Together with various research institutes and institutes of higher learning, the MPA will support an enhancement programme for researchers in the maritime domain to enhance the vessel designs, safety and cybersecurity, and reduce the energy requirements. This will help reduce the overall costs for these designs when scaled up as well as support continuous improvements.

When the designs and prototypes are ready, the participants can progressively market these enhanced reference designs to interested parties and aggregate production demand from the industry. The MPA expects that the use of ready reference designs and production at scale will help ensure cost savings for companies planning to make the transition to electric harbour craft.

Of the 11 selected designs, six have secured the relevant technical approvals from classification societies such as the American Bureau of Shipping, Bureau Veritas, China Classification Society, DNV and RINA, and will be seeking to aggregate industry demand for their designs. The MPA said the six designs submitted by the Coastal Sustainability Alliance, marinEV (a consortium that includes shipbuilder Lita Ocean), and Pyxis Maritime comply with Singapore’s requirements in terms of battery specifications, digital and cyber systems, training requirements, and development of local capability.

These participants will be working directly with the MPA and its researchers over the next two to six months to optimise and validate their harbour craft designs, depending on their current maturity and readiness.

The remaining five proposals were submitted by the CAEV+ Consortium, the China Everbright Environment Group, Cyan Renewables Consortium (a consortium of Bureau Veritas Marine and Offshore, PSA Marine, Strategic Marine, and technology providers SeaCabbie, Sea Forrest and Victory Petroleum), and Gennal Engineering. The MPA will work with these participants, together with the various institutes of higher learning and research institutes, to further develop their designs.

The scope of enhancements will include optimisation of the vessel hull and electrical systems design, the design of fire-resilient battery rooms, and cyber health monitoring system to strengthen the vessels’ energy efficiency and safety. Similarly, these designs can be progressively implemented for demand aggregation from the industry.