On Wednesday, at the ISWG-20, Gavin Allwright, IWSA Secretary General had the great honour to speak as the representative of the International Windship Association membership to the plenary session at the International Maritime Organization at the end of the Intersessional Working Group.
The title of the presentation was “Shipping’s Second Wind: Wind Propulsion and the Energy Transition”.
While some adjustment to the messaging was required in the face of last week’s adjournment of MEPC-ES2, though less than you might think. The short presentation tried to answer three questions:
1 – Is Wind Propulsion development robust enough to continue to grow without further policy support?
Yes, first movers and early adopters, the first 10-15% are actively moving and that is a large enough investment signal for tech providers to continue to bring solutions to market and invest in the supply chain. However, to scale further and quicker we need regulation to encourage later adopters to move.
2 – What level of emission reduction can be achieved and what will that cost?
This can be substantial, 5-20% from standard retrofits based on unchanged motor vessel profiles, optimised up to 30%. Newbuilds can go far higher with primary wind vessels growing in size and number with 50%+ energy provision from wind, higher numbers are achieved on the best routes and when operational profiles are adjusted (weather routing etc.)
If we adopt a total cost of ownership model then these systems ultimately are revenue positive, this can happen within a handful of years, which is the only propulsion system that can make that claim.
3 – Where next?
As a sector, we see 2026-27 as the market inflexion point with 2026 ending with c.200 large ships installed. Demonstrators are then available throughout the fleet and a growing amount of data, knowledge and expertise will be available in the market.
Do we need global policy to turbo-charge the decarbonisation pathway, of course. However, wind propulsion will continue to grow and be at or very near to that inflexion point as we return to IMO to pick up where we left off in October next year.
