The consortium consists of 14 partners from seven European countries covering the whole innovation value chain, including technology developers, academic institutions, maritime engineering, class society, digital transformation and a shipyard.

The project is a Horizon Innovation Action that aims to develop, build and demonstrate a 35 meter, 300 passenger capacity vessel that will be powered by the FCM400 fuel cell system by TECO 2030. The vessel will be operated in Southern Europe. TECO 2030 will work closely with all the consortium partners to develop the entire value chain ensuring full operational requirements for the vessel. This includes a functional hydrogen refueling system, fulfilling infrastructure requirements, cost optimization during operations and efficient data management.

The project proposal was submitted in April 2023 and has been evaluated by experts in the European Commission in terms of Excellence, Impact and Quality. The project was among the highest-scoring proposals of this Call and has now been invited for Horizon Europe Grant Agreement Preparation. We expect the grant preparation process to be finalized later this year, and the project start date to be around January 2024.

“I’m proud to announce that we have won our second Horizon Europe project! Winning two EU-projects out of two attempts is an extraordinary achievement, and I would like to thank our partners and our internal proposal writing team for their strong efforts,” said Fredrik Aarskog, Director of Business Development, TECO 2030.

“We are thrilled to continue to showcase how hydrogen can contribute to the reduction of harmful emissions within the marine industry. This project has the potential to enable seaborn passenger transport, without any emissions,” said Tore Enger, Group CEO, TECO 2030. “Our fuel cells are the first purpose-developed marine fuel cells, with an industry leading footprint without compromising efficiency,” Enger concludes.

Renewable hydrogen is universally considered to be an important energy vector in the global efforts to combat climate change by limiting greenhouse gas emissions to the "well below 2°C scenario", as agreed by more than 190 states in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Waterborne transport, in particular the use of large seagoing vessels, remains a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and this sector must step up its efforts significantly and through a wide range of measures. Within the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a global agreement was reached in 2018 to reduce total GHG missions from maritime transport by at least 50% by 2050 compared to 2008 as a base year.