The maritime industry's path to decarbonisation represents a significant challenge due to the industry's long-standing reliance on fossil fuels. It requires a fundamental transformation in fuel types, production, distribution, and infrastructure, as well as overcoming technical, economic, and regulatory barriers. Alternative fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia offer potential solutions, but their adoption requires substantial changes to ship designs, propulsion systems, supply chains, infrastructure and operational practices. As such, their deployment at scale is unlikely to be seen this decade, the need to progress decarbonisation in the maritime sector in the short term is essential to meet our global climate needs. The use of low carbon intensity methanol as an alternative fuel overcomes many of these challenges. Unlike ammonia or hydrogen, methanol is a liquid at standard ambient conditions. This not only makes transportation and storage simpler, but its properties also allow for use in existing marine internal combustion engines with relatively minor modifications. This unlocks the potential for retrofit deployment ensuring decarbonisation is not just limited to new builds. One of the major challenges associated with hydrogen and ammonia deployment at sea is the scale of infrastructure development required to support their use. Methanol as a marine fuel can utilise decades of infrastructure development by the legacy oil and gas industries. Swapping out grey methanol for lower carbon intensity grades allows this infrastructure to be repurposed with minimal investment or development. This will enable rapid scaling of bunkering capacity ensuring meaningful decarbonisation can be achieved this decade. This project brings together the proven world class power systems capabilities of Cummins, with the platform provided by the Ocean Infinity Armada fleet. The port of Aberdeen is a leading UK port perfectly positioned to serve the rapidly growing offshore wind industry. Proman is a long-standing global leader in methanol production and a pioneer in the development and transition to ultra-low carbon methanol production. The project will develop and deploy a UK designed and built methanol conversion kit for a high horsepower marine internal combustion engine on a 78m state of the art battery hybrid offshore services vessel operating in the North Sea. In doing so the UK will gain an important foothold in enabling the transition to cleaner maritime fuels. This project is targeting a reduction in CO2 emissions of 50% for offshore operations with NOx, SOx and PM at levels considerably below that developed with conventional fuel.

ACUA Ocean is a clean-maritime start-up that has designed a zero-emission SWATH vessel powered by liquid-hydrogen, capable of open ocean transits and transportation of a 4.5ton payload.We are partnering with the Port of Aberdeen, a leader in supporting new innovation with world-class infrastructure, ideally positioned for access to the North Sea and offshore renewables sector. This feasibility study develops a detailed project plan for the world's first hydrogen-powered zero-emission crossing demonstration from the Port of Aberdeen in the UK, to Norway in 2024, an economically important potential green shipping corridor route. UK exports to Norway amounting to £6.8bn (Q4 2021), while total UK imports from Norway amounted to £28.6bn. The Clydesbank Declaration at COP26, accelerates the assessment of short-sea shipping and green shipping corridors by establishing stakeholder partnerships along the value chain, including Ports and operators to accelerate net-zero maritime operations and deliver more sustainable and resilient transport routes, unlocking coastal economies and removing traffic for road networks. In the UK, the Department for Transport is looking to operationalise national commitments such as ship operators' near-term plans regarding alternatively fuelled vessels; fuel and technology pathways early movers are looking at and why; collaboration opportunities in countries with shipping links to the UK exploring green corridors; pilots and demonstration plans; and what support would early movers need from the government to support their plans. The ACUA vessel was developed to align with the UK Government's ambitious agenda for maritime decarbonisation. The policy, set out in Maritime 2050 and the Technology and Innovation in UK Maritime (TIUK) route-map, legislates for all new vessels built and operating in UK waters to be zero-emission propulsion by 2025.The vessel will undergo testing from September 2023\. The project furthers baseline research conducted by the Port of Aberdeen entitled "Hydrogen Port" by developing new hydrogen risk and regulatory assessments, technical blast and bunkering analysis and expanding use-cases for the safe operation of hydrogen fuels in the Port. The project will review the technical vessel design and configuration (including stability and ballasting) as well as analysis of the safe storage of liquid-hydrogen on board ACUAs SWATH vessel for open ocean crossings. We will be working with Lloyd's Register and the MCA as subcontractors on the project to ensure the mission plan meets regulatory standards.

Ports play a critical role in the Maritime industry's transition to net zero by 2050 with Aberdeen playing a key role in International Trade and is a key enabler within the local, regional and national supply chain. Our goal is to accelerate transition to Net Zero by eliminating emissions through adapting and supporting the development and introduction of innovative technology and processes. As the first step in our Sustainability Strategy, we will complete a Feasibility Study to understand how Port of Aberdeen can decarbonise day-to-day operations to support organisational and UK net zero goals by 2040 and 2050 respectively. The study, which may have wider implications across the UK port sector aligns with the emissions reductions goals published in the DfT Clean Maritime Plan of 2019\. The project will look to understand future power demands, low carbon energy supply sources and will develop a roadmap for implementation to decarbonise port operations which will improve conditions for port users and the wider Aberdeen City region. The study will explore green, alternative power sources and technologies to power port and third party owned equipment including but not limited to road vehicles, cranes, reach stackers, tugs and pilot boats etc, as well as quayside infrastructure. We will also map out energy demands to understand high level future demands. Further to the port specific objectives it is our aim to drive a Ports and Regional Strategic Advisory Group to address the cross-sector challenges of decarbonisation. The group will agree priorities, develop a solution roadmap that delivers optimum lifecycle emissions reductions and work to address policy gaps that impact the implementation of broader regional decarbonisation initiatives.

This project will undertake a Feasibility Study for a next-phase demonstration project for a green shore power scheme in Aberdeen's existing North Harbour. Key outputs will be an Outline Business Case for the scheme and plans for the demonstration project. The project builds on a recently completed study commissioned by Aberdeen Harbour Board which produced an initial system design for shore power to AHB's berths and completed initial emissions and business modelling. This demonstrated substantial reductions in GHG emissions and a viable business model. This confirmed the findings of a recent Clusters Research Project undertaken for DfT which stated that Aberdeen was one of two priority ports in the UK for adopting this technology. Shore power to avoid vessel emissions at berth is an established technology, but significant technical differences exist with the appropriate physical infrastructure and associated system specifications. Its application in this project is for vessels involved in a wide array of activities, including small to medium vessels such as Offshore Service Vessels. Whilst the system design and associated Outline Business Case will be at the core of this project, work by Connected Places Catapult will take a broader 'system of systems' approach, considering how the shore power developments will fit into full decarbonisation of the existing and new Aberdeen harbours, the vessels using it and its linkages to the wider Aberdeen city region. This complementary part of project will add substantial value to the focused study by using it to develop a transferable blueprint for implementation of shore power which can be replicated in other UK regional ports. It will help develop a long-term vision of a Net Zero Aberdeen port and how that fits into the broader regional decarbonisation initiatives.