Maritime traffic in the Arctic region is rapidly increasing. But there has been a huge increase in marine casualties in this region due to its extremely harsh environment and the severe safety challenges for ships’ navigation teams. SEDNA will develop an innovative and integrated risk-based approach to safe Arctic navigation, ship design and operation, to enable European maritime interests to confidently fully embrace the Arctic’s significant and growing shipping opportunities, while safeguarding its natural environment. More specifically SEDNA will create and demonstrate the improved safety outcomes of: 1. The Safe Arctic Bridge, a human-centered operational environment for the ice-going ship bridge using augmented reality technology to provide improved situational awareness and decision making whilst enabling integration with new key information layers developed by the project using innovative big data management techniques. 2. Integrated dynamic meteorological and oceanographic data with real time ship monitoring and ice movement predictions to provide reliable decision making for safe and efficient Arctic voyage optimisation. 3. Anti-icing engineering solutions, using nature inspired approaches, to prevent ice formation on vessels, eliminating ice as a ship stability and working-environment hazard. 4. Risk-based design framework to ensure that vessel design is connected to all key hazards of ship operation in the Arctic. The holistic treatment of the ship design, operating regime and environment will improve safety and minimise impact over the entire life cycle. 5. A CEN Workshop Agreement on a process to systematically address safety during bunkering of methanol as a marine fuel along with safety zone guidance for three bunkering concepts: Truck to Ship, Shore to Ship and Ship to Ship. To maximise impact, SEDNA will provide formal inputs to international regulatory regimes regarding regulation adaptation requirements for its safety solutions.

The FReSMe project, From Residual Steel gases to Methanol, will produce a methanol that will be demonstrated in ship transportation. This green fuel will be produced from CO2, recovered from an industrial Blast Furnace, and H2 recovered both from the blast furnace gas itself, as well as H2 produced by electrolysis. The two different sources of H2 will enable (i) maximum use of the current residual energy content of blast furnace gas, while at the same time (ii) demonstrating a forward technology path where low carbon or renewable H2 become more ubiquitous. The project will make use of the existing equipment from two pilot plants, one for the energy efficient separation of H2 and CO2 from blast furnace gas, and one for the production of methanol from a CO2-H2 syngas stream. This can be realised with a small amount of extra equipment, including supplemental H2 production from an electrolyser and a H2/N2 separation unit from commercially available equipment. Methanol is a high volume platform chemical of universal use in chemical industry as well as applicable for fuelling internal combustion engines. As such it provides a promising pathway for the large scale re-use of CO2 to decarbonize the transportation and chemical sectors in Europe and decrease the dependence on fossil fuel imports. Production of methanol from CO2 offers the unique combination of scale, efficiency and economic value necessary to achieve large scale carbon reduction targets. The pilot plant will run for a total of three months divided over three different runs with a nominal production rate of up to 50 kg/hr from an input of 800 m3/hr blast furnace gas. This size is commensurate with operation at TRL6, where all the essential steps in the process must be joined together in an industrial environment. The project will address the new integration options that this technology has within the Iron and Steel industry and contains supplementary and supporting research of underlying phenomena.

Ro-ro ships are an important component of the global transportation system, but an increasing trend of ro-ro ship fires in recent years call for improved fire protection. From comprehensive ship operators’ experience and by participation in ongoing work for the European Maritime Safety Agency and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), critical aspects of ro-ro ship fire safety have been identified to form the scope of the project LASH FIRE. It aims to provide a recognized technical basis for the revision of international IMO regulations, which greatly enhances fire prevention and ensures management of fires on ro-ro ships without recourse to external intervention. This is done by developing and demonstrating operational and design solutions which strengthen the fire protection of ro-ro ships in all stages of a fire and which address current and future challenges, including regulatory issues. Twenty specific challenges have been identified, which will be addressed by new solutions developed and demonstrated with regards to performance and ship integration feasibility by system suppliers, researchers, ship owners and shipyards. For the solutions to be considered for regulatory uptake, their impact on risk reduction and cost will be assessed and advisory groups with operators and flag states will be established. Thereby, the project is expected to significantly strengthen the independent fire protection of ro-ro ships and to reduce the frequency of ro-ro ship fires by 35% and the number of fatalities by 45%.

ePIcenter will create an interoperable cloud-based ecosystem of user-friendly extensible Artificial Intelligence-based logistics software solutions and supporting methodologies that will enable all players in global trade and international authorities to co-operate with ports, logistics companies and shippers, and to react in an agile way to volatile political and market changes and to major climate shifts impacting traditional freight routes. This will address the ever-increasing expectations of 21st century consumers for cheaper and more readily available goods and bring in Innovations in transport, such as hyperloops, autonomous/robotic systems (e.g. “T-pods”) and new last-mile solutions as well as technological initiatives such as blockchain, increased digitalisation, single windows, EGNOS positional precision and the Copernicus Earth Observation Programme. ePIcenter thus addresses MG-2-9-2019 of H2020 Mobility for Growth “InCo Flagship on Integrated multimodal, low-emission freight transport systems and logistics”, particularly in what refers to new logistics concepts, new disruptive technologies, new trade routes (including arctic routes and new Silk routes) and multimodal transfer zones. ePIcenter will speed up the path to a Physical Internet and will benefit peripheral regions and landlocked developing countries. ePIcenter will reduce fuel usage (and corresponding emissions) by 10-25%, lead to greater utilisation of greener modes of transport reducing long distance movements by trucks by 20-25% and ensure a smoother profile of arrivals at ports which will reduce congestion and waiting/turnaround times.

The TwinShip consortium is spearheading an initiative to transform the maritime sector by creating an alliance of premier maritime technology, solution & service providers, ship design and shipping firms, classification societies, ports, software developers, and research and academic bodies. This collaboration is centered around a unique, open-source digital platform enriched with data and powered by domain knowledge-based advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities. By introducing a Digital Twin (DT) enabled Decision Support System (DSS) in the same digital platform, TwinShip is setting a course for the maritime industry's rapid digital and environmental transformation. The project sets ambitious benchmarks for reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions in international shipping, aiming for a 30-40% reduction by 2030, 80-90% by 2040, and achieving net-zero emissions by 2045, all relative to 2008 levels by utilizing its Pilot Vessels and Futuristic Unmanned Vessel Concept. This initiative focuses on leveraging both existing and emergent clean fuels and technologies, prioritizing renewable energy sources, and the implementation of unmanned vessels. The TwinShip DT-enabled DSS is crafted to navigate the industry toward achieving these significant environmental targets, demonstrating the consortium's dedication to fostering sustainability and pushing the boundaries of innovation.