The first hydrogen fuel cell ferry in the US will go into operation in the San Francisco Bay for Switch Maritime early in 2022.
The 70-foot (21.3-metre), 75-passenger aluminium catamaran Sea Change was built at the All American Marine shipyard in Washington state, with the hydrogen power system part of the project overseen by Zero Emission Industries — formerly Golden Gate Zero Emission Marine.
Zero Emission Industries chief executive Joe Pratt told the Ship Zero Conference that the vessel can be fuelled by hydrogen trucks that operate in California to supply 60 fuel stations for light vehicles across the state.
The Sea Change has tanks capable of holding 264 kg of hydrogen to power 360 kilowatts of fuel cell capacity. It has a maximum speed of 20 knots and range of 300 nautical miles (555 km).
But Johan Burgren, business manager at PowerCell Sweden, said fuel cell technology needs to be scaled up from shortsea ferries to deepsea vessels as well.
Powercell is building a 3-MW fuel cell plant to be installed on a vessel operated with liquid hydrogen, Burgren said.
He said he could not give further details yet about the project but added: "This ship owner is demonstrating that this is possible to do."
Auxiliary fuel cell power systems for powering reefer containers are under development, he added, and PowerCell is scaling up modular systems in 200-kW increments.
Ardmore Shipping's chief operating officer, Mark Cameron, said 25% of the company's tankers' emissions are from the electricity generation needed to run the ships.
Final approval for the Sea Change's hydrogen systems was recently received from the US Coast Guard.
"Hydrogen and fuel cell technology is not uncertain," Pratt said of his experience, "it is more about the acceptance, regulation and getting everything to work together on the water — and that can take a long time and be challenging."
Vision and patience is required from all the partners in such a project, he said, and it is difficult to find shipyards with hydrogen piping expertise.
The Zero Emissions Ship Technology Association conference is being held alongside the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow this week.
