Feasibility study - to explore Net Carbon Zero vessel solutions on the Thames

This proposal, submitted by a team comprising BAE Systems, Cory and Wight Shipyard under the Innovate UK Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition (Strand 1) is an initial feasibility study that will inform and de-risk the development and future operation of a fleet of up to 25 autonomous, self-propelled barges, powered by energy-from-waste generated by a waste processing plant in Belvedere, Kent. The study will assess the potential to extend the resulting shore-side charging infrastructure to provide a service to third party river users. This will reduce the barriers to entry for operators considering the transition away from fossil fuels and accelerating the decarbonisation of the wider Thames ecosystem to help achieve the government's 2050 net zero greenhouse gas target.

This feasibility study will address the technical, operational and regulatory issues facing future low carbon marine traffic on the River Thames, where the complex city environment makes shore-side charging infrastructure a particular barrier, and where the tidal nature of the river brings additional complexity to vessel energy profiles. The study will cover an appraisal of various system options before outlining a detailed implementation roadmap.

The project will focus on the integration of existing technologies where possible, but identify technology gaps and proposed solutions, together with how and when these will be embodied into the exploitation roadmap. We recognise that some technologies are currently less mature than others and the roadmap will articulate how these technologies can transition into the solution over time as technical maturity and regulatory appetite dictates.

The key success criteria for the feasibility study will be the development of an exploitation roadmap that will lay the foundations for a concrete commercial deployment, and a fully costed plan for the next phase, which is a single vessel demonstration and evaluation system.

The anticipated well-to-wake greenhouse gas reduction for the Cory implementation is 54,765 tonnes of CO2 based on the replacement of marine diesel with energy-from-waste over a 15 year operational lifetime. Extension of these concepts across other Thames operators facilitated by shore-side infrastructure as a service could increase this to 200,000 tonnes in the same timeframe.