First superyacht with a methanol fuel cell
The German shipyard Lürssen has announced the upcoming construction of a superyacht equipped with a fuel cell using methanol. As is customary in the yachting industry, little specific information about the boat was revealed, but Peter Lürssen, head of the shipyard, did specify some of the vessel's zero-emission range characteristics:
- more than 50 nights at anchor
- more than 1000 miles at slow cruising speed.
A pilot project at the German shipyard
The future yacht will be the first operational implementation in the yachting industry of the German-funded collaborative project Paxcell, which Lürssen is leading together with six other German and international partners: the cruise ship owner Carnival, the shipyard Meyer Werft, the classification society DNV and the technical specialists Besecke Automation, DLR, EPEA and Freudenberg. A test installation is being tested at the shipyard in Bremen. The 120 kW system is installed in six shipping containers with a control room, a fuel cell, a technical area, a cooling and ventilation container and a double-skinned methanol tank. The advantage claimed by the reformed methanol site is the possibility of long storage, without the need for pressurization or cryogenics. The methanol tank is structurally integrated into the ship's hull.
Once the 120kW output has been validated, Peter Lürssen sets the next development stages at 500kW and then 1 MW of power.
Shipowners of large yachts ready to invest
For the German shipyard's CEO, yacht owners are ready to support these innovations. "Our customers, who already invest a lot of money in yacht building, are willing to spend that little bit of extra money to make that quantum leap and advance the propulsion technologies on yachts," says Peter Lürssen.
Although methanol exists today as a co-product of the petroleum industry, the green methanol sector has yet to be created.
