Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) is stepping up its efforts to develop fuel cell-applied ships to dominate the eco-friendly ship market.
SHI announced on June 30 that it has signed a Joint Development Agreement (JDA) with Bloom Energy of the U.S., a global fuel cell maker, to jointly develop fuel cells for ships.
Chung Ho-hyun, head of SHI's technology development headquarters, and KR Sridhar, president of Bloom Energy, held an event to mark the signing of the agreement by connecting Geoje Shipyard with Bloom Energy's headquarters in California by video.
SHI is planning to secure additional core fuel cell technologies that can be applied to its flagship LNG carriers and shuttle tankers by 2022 through joint development with Bloom Energy, which succeeded in commercializing the world's first solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC).
Previously, the two companies obtained the world's first basic design approval (Approval in Principle) for fuel cell carriers from DNV GL, a Norwegian and German ship, in September last year.
Fuel cells have very high power generation efficiency and are highly effective in reducing environmental pollutants such as sulfur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and greenhouse gases (CO2), so they are considered as optimized future eco-friendly energy sources that can replace existing ship propellants for internal combustion engines and generators.
Meanwhile, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which forced ships to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 30% by 2025, presented its vision of "strongly reducing and promptly implementing ship's greenhouse gas emissions" at the 72nd meeting of the MEPC, the marine environment protection committee, in 2018 and is considering tightening regulations by 40 percent in 2030 and 70 percent in 2050.
Jang Hae-ki, head of SHI's technical sales team, said, "The stronger the environmental regulations, the faster the trend of escaping traditional ship fuel oil will be. Samsung Heavy Industries' fuel cell ship technology will become the safest and most economical eco-friendly solution in the shipping industry in the future."
"Technical cooperation with SHI will help us achieve our missions of reducing emissions and developing clean energy at the same time," said Sridhar, president of Bloom Energy.
