Pictured: Hans Petter Nesse (Wärtsilä), Hege Økland (NCE Maritime CleanTech), Bernt Skeie (Former Prototech, now Clara Venture Labs), Frida Monstad (Equinor) and Jan Fredrik Meling (Eidesvik) during the Ship FC kick off on board Viking Energy.
– This is great news for the ground-breaking Ship FC project. This proves Prototech`s competence and technology and will be important for the green shift in the maritime sector, says Project Manager in the Ship FC project, Tore Boge at Maritime CleanTech.
Aker bought Prototech this summer. This week, plans for several new companies dedicated to industrializing the work already started by Prototech, were revealed.
Prototech has now changed its name to Clara Venture Labs.
– This new venture can be a game-changer for accelerating the move to zero-emission shipping. Aker is investing heavily in this, and I think the knowledge and competence of the 30 000 Aker-employees who now join our team, can help us both develop and implement new technologies much faster, says the CEO at Clara Venture Labs, Bernt Skeie.
Skeie is sure the Ship FC project has been important for the new strategic partnerships for scaling up the fuel cell technologies.
– The Ship FC project has helped us prove that the technology we have developed is close to a market introduction. With our new owners in place, we can now start to scale up our work with maritime fuel cells, says Skeie.
Alma is a new venture in process of being launched and established as a separate venture under Clara Venture Labs. This company will provide clean power technologies to the maritime, offshore, and land-based sectors. Alma’s technologies are based on high-temperature fuel cells, enabling zero-emission with high efficiency and fuel flexibility.
Alma will now join the Ship FC consortium, taking over the development of the world´s first 2MW Ammonia fuel cell modules who are to be installed in offshore vessel Viking Energy.
Aker BP, Alma, and Ship FC project partner Eidesvik have also entered a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore opportunities for utilizing Alma’s proprietary fuel cell technology to accelerate the move to zero emissions shipping.
Specifically, the companies will explore retrofit installation of Alma’s fuel cell technology on the PSV vessels NS Frayja and Viking Lady with the option to include further vessels in the scope of the project as well.
The partnership represents an industry-wide collaboration between energy companies, technology providers, and vessel operators and owners. Collaboration like this is essential to accelerate the implementation of clean fuel engine technologies.
