Danish decarbonisation and digitalisation group ShippingLab is setting up a project to create an international platform for testing and validating new alternative marine fuels.

The project involves the Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping, Alfa Laval, MAN Energy Solutions, Norden, AP Moller-Maersk and biofuel supplier MASH Energy.

ShippingLab aims to develop a permanent platform to test and validate green fuels, which will help suppliers better understand the needs of the shipping world.

The project, supported by the Danish Maritime Fund, will investigate technical, regulatory, environmental and financial factors “to clarify if a potential sustainable fuel can become a product potentially traded in large volumes within the maritime industry”.

The aim is not to set up a new market competitor, but a venture that links producers with the relevant facilities for providing data about their sustainable fuels.

ShippingLab chairman Kjeld Dittmann said: “New sustainable fuels are needed, but in practice it is a great challenge to create a new product, and the partners in the project want to help make this easier.”

The first step will be for stakeholders to establish what validation points are required and map which facilities are already available.

The steering committee behind ShippingLab consists of Logimatic, MAN Energy Solutions, Maersk Tankers, the Technical University of Denmark, FORCE Technology, Danish Maritime, Danish Shipping and the Danish Maritime Authority.

ShippingLab has a budget of about €12m ($14.2m) and is supported by Innovation Fund Denmark, the Danish Maritime Fund, Orient’s Fund and Lauritzen Fonden. The fuel project partners’ contributions will be self-financed.

Technology

ShippingLab sets up project to test and validate green fuels