In Sweden, marine fuel infrastructure developer Fossil Free Marine Europe AB (Fossil Free Marine) and compatriot shipyard Swede Ship Composite, part of Swede Ship Marine AB have entered into an agreement on the production of what is said to be the world's first, unmanned and fossil-free, marine fuel station. Production is scheduled to start mid-January 2022, for deployment and the start of commercial operations during the first half of 2022.
Swede Ship Composite specializes in the construction, and repair, of advanced vessels in composite materials for both commercial and military applications while start-up Fossil Free Marine has developed boating infrastructure solutions that enable the transition to fossil-free and sustainable boating, both biofuels and fast charging for electric boats.
This marks a major milestone for Fossil Free Marine, as we move from the development phase into the production of our first commercial product, said Karl-Oskar Tjernström, co-founder and CEO of Fossil Free Marine.
The marine fuel station for fossil-free drop-in fuel, designed by Fossil Free Marine co-founder Niklas Sjöö, is a “world’s first” and has a global patent pending and a design patent.
I am immensely proud of the whole team at Fossil Free Marine, as it has truly been a massive undertaking to get to this point. In Swede Ship Composite, we feel we have found a supplier who genuinely understands and buys into our ambitious plans to change the way fuels are distributed in the marine sector and take part in making boating sustainable on a global scale. I look forward to working together with Swede Ship to realize our vision with breakthrough innovation, enabling financially viable, safe, and environmentally friendly distribution of renewable fuels in large volumes, Karl-Oskar Tjernström said.
Public co-funding
The first autonomous marine refueling units are partly funded by a grant from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s “Climate leap” (KlimatKlivet) program for “incremental costs associated with supplying renewable fuels.”
In its grant motivation, the Agency remarked that the initiative is “…is among those that exhibit the highest sustainable reduction in greenhouse gas emissions per invested krona (SEK)”.
We are humbled and proud to have been given the opportunity to produce the first commercial-scale marine fuel station for Fossil Free Marine, said Bo Axelsson, President, and CEO of Swede Ship Composite.
The first unit will be installed in a prime location near central Stockholm, enabling both pleasure boats and commercial traffic alike to make the needed shift to renewable fuel, with a modern turn-key solution that is both economically viable, safe, and environmentally friendly.
Our skills in composite production, as well as tailored solutions for demanding customers, makes us uniquely positioned to tackle an engineering project like this. We look forward to being part of the exciting journey that Fossil Free Marine is embarking on, which is in line with the ambition of several of our core customers to make the transition to such as HVO100 renewable diesel, ended Bo Axelsson.
