The Carbon Trust’s Offshore Wind Accelerator programme has launched a competition that aims to accelerate the development of technologies with the potential to reduce emissions and fuel consumption of crew transfer vessels.
Up to £100,000 will be awarded to the winning technologies, out of a total of £300,000, to support development or demonstration.
The Carbon Trust said that designs submitted to the competition will be assessed for overall cost, operations and safety advantages.
It added that vessel designs, power and propulsion technologies as well as energy-providing systems will be considered within the scope of the competition.
The competition is being run in parallel with a commissioned study that will evaluate potential technologies to reduce emissions and fuel consumption.
The study will also look at the cost/benefit of existing and future powering and storage technologies and determine the infrastructure needed for integrating new technology into offshore wind operations.
Carbon Trust manager of offshore wind access systems Dan Kyle Spearman said: “The Low Emissions Vessels Competition demonstrates the commitment of the OWA developers to help further decarbonise offshore wind vessels, going beyond the regulatory requirements for vessel emissions.
“The available funding will help kick-start the wider industry into looking into new ideas and using their ingenuity to overcome these challenges.
“The offshore wind industry also has a great opportunity to be a testbed and demonstration platform for new low-carbon technologies.”