Offshore Charging Vessel

The transition to hybrid-electric and fully electric vehicles on UK roads has been aided and enabled by the abundance of available outlets to recharge batteries (car park fast charging, domestic installations). The development of battery technology has removed factors that inhibit the uptake of vehicles including -- range anxiety, time taken to charge, and the number of cycles for each battery, which all impact value and utility.

As the market has matured the UK Government has offered full support by legislating for a 2-phase ban on the sale of new conventional Internal Combustion Engines(ICE) in 2030, followed by a ban of new 'plug-in' hybrids by 2035\. This is due to the greenhouse gas emissions by ICE representing a significant barrier on the road to net-zero.

In 2019, the UK Government released its Clean Maritime Plan, Maritime 2050, setting out its vision for the future of zero-emission shipping. By 2025, the Government expects that:

"All vessels operating in UK waters are maximising the use of energy efficiency options. All new vessels being ordered for use in UK waters are being designed with zero-emission propulsion capability. Zero-emission commercial vessels are in operation in UK waters."

One solution (mirroring land) for zero-emission propulsion is the utilisation of electrically-driven propulsion systems. Importantly, however, this requires battery capacity on board to support safe vessel transit _to /from_ port. There are two logical approaches to enable this, each with advantages and disadvantages:

\*Use existing battery technology to deliver the required power. This will enable vessels to overcome the existing range anxiety. However, with current battery energy density this will be both expensive and heavy in comparison to existing ICE/hybrid solutions to achieve the necessary range;

\*Use existing battery technology but create offshore charging 'platforms' akin to land. This would limit the cost and weight associated with batteries. However, while there are 'main routes' on land, altering vessel routes to attend 'refuel' stations is not economical to a vessel on charter.

This project seeks to identify the feasibility of a charging vessel, that is capable of taking charge from an OWF in times of low National Grid demand and delivering that to any other third-party vessel using electrically/hybrid-driven propulsion, or by battery 'hot-swapping', therefore maximising the zero-emission capability of the vessel fleet. The vessel will be fitted with electrified 'daughter' craft(eCTVs) for O&M activities and can sail to locations of highest demand, essentially a mobile recharge platform.