Ger­des Green recei­ves govern­ment sub­s­idy for Damen Com­bi Freigh­ter 3850 green innovations

On 4^th Octo­ber, Damen’s cli­ent Ger­des Green recei­ved a sub­s­idy from the Ger­man Govern­ment for the invest­ment in sus­tainable inno­va­tions for a Damen Com­bi Freigh­ter (CF) 3850 curr­ent­ly under con­s­truc­tion, as well as for a second ves­sel. Damen, tog­e­ther with Ger­des Green and ves­sel char­te­rer Car­gill, has deve­lo­ped a tail­o­red ves­sel, the CF 3850 Hybrid, with the aim of sub­stan­ti­al­ly redu­cing the envi­ron­men­tal foot­print of coas­ter ves­sel operations.

The sub­s­idy was pre­sen­ted to Ger­des Green by Minis­ter Vol­ker Wis­sing at an event held at the Minis­try of Digi­tal Affairs and Trans­port (in Ber­lin, Ger­ma­ny). The sub­s­idy was one of a num­ber award­ed to mari­ti­me com­pa­nies as part of the Ger­man Government’s Nam­kü direc­ti­ve. Nam­kü aims at the moder­ni­sa­ti­on of ves­sels in a bid to redu­ce emis­si­ons pro­du­ced by the country’s coas­tal fleet.

Inves­t­ing in innovation

As a result of the sub­s­idy award, Ger­des Green will invest in a num­ber of opti­ons that will ser­ve to fur­ther increase the effi­ci­en­cy of its new CF 3850 ves­sels. This invol­ves the inclu­si­on of a bat­tery dri­ven pro­pul­si­on sys­tem. With this, the ves­sels will be able to sail short-term ful­ly elec­tri­cal­ly wit­hout local emis­si­ons, for ins­tance when approa­ching ports and when pas­sing through popu­la­ted are­as, ther­eby ensu­ring clean air.

The ves­sels will also fea­ture wind assis­ted pro­pul­si­on in the form of foldable ven­to­foils from Eco­no­wind. This inno­va­ti­ve wing-shaped device harnes­ses the wind to pro­vi­de addi­tio­nal pro­pul­si­on force, lowe­ring depen­dence on the engi­ne, ther­eby redu­cing emissions.

The ves­sels will also be able to sail on B100 bio­die­sel, signi­fi­cant­ly redu­cing CO2 emis­si­ons. Fur­ther­mo­re, they will include a 130kW shore con­nec­tion, eli­mi­na­ting emis­si­ons when the ves­sels are docked.

An icon fit for the future

The Damen CF 3850 is an ico­nic ves­sel, renow­ned in the inter­na­tio­nal car­go ves­sel sec­tor. With its ambi­ti­on to beco­me the most sus­tainable mari­ti­me solu­ti­ons pro­vi­der, Damen has recent­ly rede­ve­lo­ped the design app­ly­ing the latest tools and using com­pu­ta­tio­nal flu­id dyna­mics (CFD) and signi­fi­cant­ly lowe­ring the vessel’s resis­tance in the water.

This hybrid ver­si­on has been deve­lo­ped in col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with Ger­des Green and Car­gill. Ger­des Green is a joint ven­ture bet­ween Ree­de­rei Ger­des and Over‑C. Ree­de­rei Ger­des has been acti­ve in the coas­ter seg­ment for 30 years and has, for the last few years, been ope­ra­ting seven CF 3850 ves­sels from Damen. The com­pa­ny part­ne­red with the Euro­pean coas­ter spe­cia­list and char­ter com­pa­ny Over‑C to deve­lop a fleet of low emis­si­on, sus­tainable ves­sels. The joint venture’s approach is to deve­lop its coas­ters tog­e­ther with char­te­rers, cus­to­mi­sing the ves­sels to meet the requi­re­ments of its clients.

Steps towards car­bon neutrality

Upon recei­ving the sub­s­idy, Ger­des Green Mana­ging Part­ner Nico­le Ger­des said, “With this fun­ding, we have achie­ved a signi­fi­cant mile­stone for our stra­tegy to build a climate-neutral fleet. The ships will make a valuable con­tri­bu­ti­on towards our jour­ney of redu­cing the envi­ron­men­tal impact of sup­p­ly chains, lea­ding the way for decar­bo­ni­zing the short sea ship­ping trade in Europe.”

Ger­des Green Mana­ging Part­ner Den­nis Cla­vier added, “In this way, the first two climate-effective ships in our fleet can con­tri­bu­te to climate-efficient sup­p­ly chains.”

Con­ti­nu­al pro­duct evolution

Com­mer­cial Direc­tor of Damen Car­go Ves­sels Rem­ko Bou­ma said, “We’re deligh­ted to see Ger­des Green award­ed with this sub­s­idy to help fur­ther the effi­ci­en­cy of their ves­sels. This ser­ves as con­fir­ma­ti­on that the steps we have taken tog­e­ther with Ger­des Green and with Car­gill are rele­vant and will help sup­port the mari­ti­me ener­gy tran­si­ti­on. We are proud of what we have achie­ved with the new CF 3850. We have taken a deser­ved­ly popu­lar ves­sel and made it fit for the future, using a ran­ge of pro­ven, relia­ble tech­no­lo­gies that gene­ra­te tan­gi­ble results.”

Included among­st the tech­no­lo­gies that the new CF 3850 draws on is the Damen Tri­ton remo­te moni­to­ring plat­form. This IoT solu­ti­on is con­nec­ted to sys­tems throug­hout the ves­sel and pro­vi­des feed­back on their per­for­mance. In this way Damen can assess per­for­mance, gai­ning valuable data that enables it to con­ti­nue to impro­ve effi­ci­en­cy, ensu­ring fur­ther evo­lu­ti­ons of effi­ci­en­cy in sub­se­quent gene­ra­ti­ons of vessels.