Skip to content

Case

Green hydrogen

Power-to-x

Container ship to sail on green methanol from 2024

19. October 2021

Solution provider

Danish Shipping

Danish Shipping is a trade and employer organisation. Half of the members of the organisation own ships registered in Denmark, the other half run their activities in Denmark under other flags of state.

More from Danish Shipping

Want to see this solution first hand?

Add the case to your visit request and let us know that you are interested in visiting Denmark

Challenge

Approximately 93,000 ships sail the oceans worldwide and this number is expected to increase along with the rising demand for international trade. In 2019, shipping accounted for around 2-3 per cent of energy related CO2 emissions in 2019. Accordingly, the potential and impact of decarbonising international shipping is great.

Solution

In 2023, A.P. Moller – Maersk will introduce the world’s first container vessel capable of being operated on carbon neutral methanol in Northern Europe. A series of twelve large ocean-going container vessels will follow shortly after in 2024.

Being the largest container shipping company in the world, the company has set an ambitious goal of having a carbon neutral fleet by 2050. All future Maersk new buildings will have dual fuel technology installed.

While the vessels will be able to operate on standard very low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO), the plan is to operate the vessels on carbon neutral e-methanol or sustainable bio-methanol from day one. Carbon neutral e-methanol is produced through Power-to-X technologies.

REintegrate and European Energy will establish a new Danish facility to produce the carbon neutral e-methanol for the first of the new container vessels. Maersk will work closely with REintegrate and European Energy on the development of the facility.

The methanol facility will use renewable energy and biogenic CO2 to produce the e-methanol. The energy needed for the power-to-methanol production will be provided by a solar farm in Kassø, Southern Denmark.

Result

The new container ships will replace older container ships and they will reportedly ensure a reduction in the company’s total CO2 emissions of around one million tonnes.

Contributor: A.P. Moller – Maersk