As the pressure to decarbonise the fleet continues to rise, there is a toolbox of solutions that is gaining a lot of attention, wind propulsion technology and designs. The Royal Institution of Naval Architects (RINA) in association with the International Windship Association (IWSA) will hold their 2nd Wind Propulsion Conference on 15-16th September, building on the success of the previous well-attended event in 2019.
The conference will have 15 high quality papers presented by leading experts from 10 countries in the fields of technology development, systems and vessel design, testing, innovation, business cases and finance and as Mr. Lars Robert Pedersen, Deputy Secretary General of BIMCO, this year’s keynote speaker says; “Often, wind propulsion is either believed to be a thing of the past or some kind of hi-tec solution only useful for racing boats. The fact is that wind propulsion offers a free energy resource which can help merchant ships lower their energy bill and thus limit the cost for transition to a low carbon future. Wind propulsion may also improve a ship’s CII performance in the short term. Exploring how wind propulsion can benefit ship operations is an exercise worth doing for every shipowner.”
The main hybrid event, sponsored by Yara Technologies, will take place physically at RINA’s London headquarters and forms a key part of the line-up for London International Shipping Week. This will be preceded by a free to attend 60 min open mic event on Tuesday 7th September, with a select group of panellists offering a chance for those who can’t attend the main event to grill the panel and also feed questions into the wider conference debate.
“We had a small interlude, but thankfully physical conferences are once again available at RINA HQ’s historic building located in the heart of central London. We are thrilled to be resuming our events starting with the much-anticipated Wind Propulsion Conference, but of course for those unable to travel to London, we will be running this conference as a hybrid event, so why not join the event online it’s really easy to register. We are happy to contribute to the International London Shipping week with our event and it’s simply going to blow you away this September!” says Dmitriy Ponkratov RINA Technical Director.
This event comes on the back of a raft of recent industry and technology announcements in the wind propulsion field and a significant growth in projects and technology providers and other stakeholders entering the sector and also joining the International Windship Association.
‘Wind propulsion systems are being viewed as a credible, viable and increasingly economic decarbonisation solution in shipping,” states Gavin Allwright, IWSA Secretary general, who will moderate the open mic event and help open the main conference. “These events give the opportunity to get up-to-date information on the state of the wind propulsion market, but also detailed insights into the state-of-the-art, highly automated systems being deployed and exciting newbuild designs on the horizon.”
