The Occitanie Region has ordered a hybrid ship, hydrogen is also revolutionizing shipbuilding.
The French Helion fuel cell will power the future dredge ordered by the Region for the maintenance of its ports. The contract was signed this Friday in Sète, with the Piriou shipyard, the ship will be delivered at the end of 2023. A world first and one more step for the decarbonization of transport.
She should be docked in October 2023 once the hull has been repatriated from Romania, fitted out in the port of Concarneau and moved by sea to Sète.
She will then be world’s first dredge with hybrid diesel and hydrogen propulsion, one of the first ships of this size, ie 70 m long, 16.8 m wide and nearly 1,800 t, to integrate a fuel cell into its heart. Launched a little over two years ago by the Region.
Punctuated by the choice in the spring of 2021 of the Breton shipyard Piriou, this project called HyDrOMer reached a new level on Friday with the signing between the shipyard and Helion, a subsidiary of Alstom, of the supply contract for the fuel cell .
Gwen Pichot (Piriou), Jean-Louis Gibelin (Occitanie Region) and Vincent Maheo (Helion), Friday in Sète Laurent Boutonnet – Occitanie Region
Created “twenty-one years ago”, recalls its president, Vincent Maheo, based in Aix-en-Provence, this pioneer acquired by Alstom last year equipped with its technology “the first locomotive in Europe, the first data center in the world” or even a production facility of green hydrogen stationary at Sanguinaires, in Corsica.
Common point : “High-powered units. We wanted to have the same technological brick regardless of the sector, maritime, rail or stationary.” Visually, a kind of white, complex container, which, from liquid hydrogen, generates electricity by rejecting water.
900 t of CO2 avoided per year
In this hybrid boat market, where Helion estimates annual growth at 80% over the coming decade, HyDrOMer will set the example.
With the target “to avoid 900 t of CO2 emissions per year” compared to conventional diesel and electric propulsion, explains Corentin Decastecker, naval engineer at the Region’s sea management, in Sète. The dredge will sail pushed by electric motors.
Corentin Decastecker, said:
The heat pump will provide 200 kW continuously.
“the additional power needed (Editor’s note, up to 1,500 kW in total) being provided by the diesels”, adds Gwen Pichot, project manager at Piriou, like a generator.
A hybridization both for navigation therefore, but also for the tasks that will be his: “Preserving the water depths in the three ports of Gau-du-Roi, Sète and Port-la-Nouvelle”recalls Cyril Taioni, Deputy Director of Ports in the Region, and thus ensure a draft for the ships that frequent them.
70 m long, almost 17 m wide, HyDrOMer will be the first hybrid hydrogen vessel in France.
Piriou shipyard
But this hybridization will also benefit the residents of its berth. At the quay, HyDrOMer will not have to run its diesels to produce the power needed for its equipment.
The fuel cell will be able to provide for this, again saving polluting emissions, which even when it will fire on its diesels, the HyDrOMer project has sought to reduce as much as possible.
It will use low sulfur fuel oil, will be “equipped with a device for filtering nitrogen oxides, NOx, says Corentin Decastecker, which earned him a double label.
We go further than the rules.” The idea is also that, like eco-driving, its crew tends to optimize the need for power to reduce fuel consumption. One challenge among others in this unique project.
1,500 m3 of dredging capacity
For its part, the yard had to design the dredger by integrating fuel cells, hydrogen tanks and buffer batteries. A pretty “challenge, very, very innovative”, recognizes Gwen Pichot, now entering the industrial phase. The cutting of the sheets has begun, the dredger will be towed at the beginning of 2023 on the bank of the Moro, in Finistère, to be armed. And will engulf sediments in waves of 1,500 m3 the following winter.
Boat, trains and coaches
Jean-Louis Gibelin, vice-president of the Regional Council, said:
The hybridized dredge project is part of the ambition to make the Region the first positive energy region in France as soon as possible.
“We need to reduce our polluting emissions by 60% on all types of mobility. This means on all means of transport. This is the case with this dredger and it is consistent with what we are doing on the road, with intercity and rail transport.”
The community entrusted a manufacturer, Safra in Albi, with the mission of converting a fleet of buses to hydrogen, replacing diesel. And it has joined forces with the SNCF and other regions in the project for a TER motorized in this way. Thanks for staying up to date with Hydrogen Central.
The Regiolis train has carried out its first tests and, like the coaches, will enter commercial service in 2023.
READ the latest news shaping the hydrogen market at Hydrogen Central
The Occitanie Region has ordered a hybrid ship: hydrogen is also revolutionizing shipbuilding, April 4, 2022
