Renewable energy firm Drax will add funding to develop Smart Green Shipping’s FastRig automated wind sail. Drax will inject £1m ($1.3m) into the initiative, matched by funding from the UK Government’s Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition grant. Smart Green Shipping is currently undertaking sea trials of the FastRig wind sail on one of Nuclear Transport Solutions’ specialist vessels, the Pacific Grebe – a purpose-built ship designed to carry nuclear cargo. The sea trials will conclude by the end of October. An earlier feasibility study conducted in partnership with Drax demonstrated potential fuel savings on ships equipped with FastRig of up to 30% per year on transatlantic routes. If the latest demonstration is successful, work to install the technology on a commercial biomass vessel can begin. The technology could also prove vital to further reducing supply chain emissions from the bulk transport of Drax’s sustainable biomass, which is used to produce around 8% of Britain’s renewable power. Drax aims to become a carbon-negative company by 2030 by installing bioenergy with carbon capture and storage at the Drax Power Station in Yorkshire. The investment in the project will also be used to develop Smart Green Shipping’s suite of wind-assist solutions including FastRoute, a digital system co-created with the University of Southampton, that combines AI with high-performance computing to analyse weather data and optimise routes for ships equipped to harness wind power. “Wind is abundant, free, and exclusively available to any ship equipped to use it. Modern 21st century easily retrofittable wing sails lower the cost of propelling ships, which reduces the dependency on commodity-based fuels – whether fossil or alternative fuels – and improves supply chain certainty,” said Diane Gilpin, CEO and founder of Smart Green Shipping. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1_95_0_1_2'); }); TagsUnited Kingdom