NEXUS will develop and demonstrate novel, beyond state of the art, specialised vessel and logistics for safe and sustainable servicing of offshore wind farms. NEXUS includes: simulation, model testing, consideration of the most suitable construction and production principles for small series or one off vessels of this type. Key aspects of NEXUS include environmental impact assessment, cost estimation as well as both the marketability (technology push), and the cost effectiveness of the offshore operations concerned (demand pull). The project will develop the concepts and validate on a demonstrator at a technology readiness level (TRL) 5 with the overall aim to reduce the marine logistics cost of offshore wind turbine maintenance by 20% compared to current practices. In addition NEXUS will enable the increase the professional skills of workers and the capability of European industry and in particular SMEs within the marine and maritime sectors to develop and commercialise specialised vessels and related technology, and will support European growth and employment through development of a blue economy.

The Smart European Shipbuilding project (SEUS) aims to create a framework for European shipyards by architecting and developing an integrated platform for a combined solution incorporating CAE, CAD, CAM, and PDM software and testing it at shipyards. The new platform solution will be built with the best EU shipbuilding expertise provided by academic and industrial consortium participants. It will develop novel practices for human-centric knowledge management, data-driven AI design elements, intelligent technology, and Industry 5.0 concept for shipbuilding. The consortium partners represent state-of-the-art development in three main areas: computational tools development, industrially applied research, and the end-users of the new technology – shipyards. The ambition is to achieve up to a 30% time-saving in engineering and up to 20% time-saving in assembly and construction at European shipyards. The elimination of gaps in digital information flows and the optimisation of work processes present the area for time and cost optimisation, providing significant economic impacts on shipbuilding. Identified impacts include development of computational platform solution, facilitation of digital transformation of shipbuilding, traceability and integration of early design impact the design process, competitive advantage for EU shipbuilders through time savings in design and production stages, expansion of shipyard’s exposure to ship’s life cycle: for retrofit, revitalisation, use of data from operation and maintenance, human-centric shipbuilding knowledge management, and EU workforce skills and expertise development. Each work package contributes to the main goal – the development of the new computational toolset, taking into account the target user groups’ needs, new research in industry and technology, integration and interoperability aspects of the platform, the novel human-centric approach, and the needed support processes for project management and dissemination.

SHIP-AH2OY project will develop a scalable, green and sustainable technology for power and heat generation on board ships. The concept is based on the combined use of hydrogen fuel cells (FC) and liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) with efficient heat integration. The developed FC/LOHC powertrain will be demonstrated on board a vessel Edda Brint owned by Ostensjo. The SHIP-AH2OY project aims to achieve the following high-level targets: 1. Use of LOHC as the hydrogen storage technology to allow use of existing infrastructure (transport, bunkering, etc) 2. Integration of the hydrogen power unit on board an existing and available ship and the demonstration of the efficient operation of the power plant using green hydrogen. 3. Scalable system architecture for larger ships and power plants by integrating several 1 MW FC/LOHC modules enabling power requirements well in excess of 3 MW. 4. A replication study for the developed FC/LOHC system allowing easy replication in e.g. service vessels and ROPAX-vessels. Basis of the project is the strong commitment of the wide range of industry partners to realize zero-emission shipping. The partners have an already pre-prepared vessel earmarked for the project and plans to retrofit several other vessels with FC/LOHC systems after the first successful demonstration of the technology. As the consortium covers the whole value chain from design-offices and class-society to ship builders, owners and operators, efficient dissemination and exploitation of the results will be a natural outcome of the project.