| Smart Green Shipping, a systems design and engineering company, aims to lead global shipping’s green transition through unique industry collaboration with Malin, Drax and the shipping sector with targets to reduce greenhouse gas and fuel costs by at least 20% via high tech sails. The project is supported by Scottish Enterprise, industry partners and private investors. |
The project is supported by Scottish Enterprise, industry partners and private investors.
Smart Green Shipping announced its plans to transform the global shipping sector at its new headquarters at The Crichton in Dumfries today (Thursday 28 July) with representatives from enterprise agencies, investors and the Scottish shipping industry.
The company received a £1.8m grant from Scottish Enterprise towards a research and development project with a total value of £5m match funded by the private sector.
Smart Green Shipping is set to develop new concepts for shipping through renewable engineering of FastRig wing sails as well as weather routing software and circular economy business models over the course of a three-year project.
The company is initially investing in 13 new roles to support the business in evolving its technology and has plans to install its demonstration FastRig at Peel Ports Hunterston Port and Resource Centre (Hunterston PARC) in collaboration with Clyde-based specialist engineering partner Malin.
This will create a wing sail manufacturing base in Glasgow with plans to have a demonstrator FastRig for testing on a commercial ship by 2023.
Scottish Government Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise Ivan McKee said: “Scotland has long had significant shipbuilding capabilities which play an integral part as we strive towards a fairer, greener and more prosperous economy.
“We want to become the home of manufacturing innovation, and to be seen as inventors and producers.”
The initial stages of the project will manufacture and deploy FastRig systems designed to augment any ship’s powertrain to save fuel, reduce mechanical wear and generate emissions credits.
In addition to the physical sail the company is also developing digital tools, in a project called TradeWind, that uses data to predict and optimise wind-use in shipping.
Smart Green Shipping Chief Executive Diane Gilpin said: “Our purpose is to develop financially and technically superior solutions that support shipping’s green transition.
“There are huge commercial benefits to developing transformative systems.”
Scottish Enterprise Director of Economic Opportunities and Climate Suzanne Sosna said: “Our work at COP26 in bringing innovative companies together with the shared ambition of creating a greener Scottish economy helped attract Smart Green Shipping to Scotland.
“I’m delighted our support allows the company to scale up its digital technology and engineer a working FastRig through access to talent, infrastructure and manufacturing resources for this collaborative project.”
