Hybrid and superconducting ships. The innovation is there; now it’s time for testing

In May, the closing event of the Horizon Europe programme dedicated to advanced energy storage systems for zero-emission maritime transport was held in Brussels. The project names – V-ACCESS, AENEAS, NEMOSHIP and POSEIDON – are rather cryptic, but the approach is interesting because it pits the technologies ‘against each other’ to reach the ultimate goal of ‘commissioning’.

The figures show that, to date, these projects represent a European investment of over 20 million and, above all, that they bring together 50 research institutes, universities and industrial organisations – many of them Italian – spanning sectors from shipbuilding to technology and certification. V-Access, for example, includes Fincantieri, RINA and ASG Superconductors, but there are also leading players from Northern Europe such as Vard (Fincantieri’s Norwegian subsidiary), which specialises in high-tech vessels, and Skeleton, an Estonian company supplying energy storage systems. And once the technologies have been identified and developed, it goes without saying that, given the scale of the shipping industry, there are prospects for an innovative industrial supply chain that will provide employment for companies and new professionals in the sector. Ships are now so heavily electrified that the role of electrical officer has recently been created: a role that could no longer be managed by engine officers alone.

Over 80 per cent of the world’s traded goods are transported by sea, and the total value of trade linked to the maritime economy reached 2.2 trillion dollars in 2023, according to UNCTAD data. Looking at the Mediterranean, economic and strategic factors both play a part in these figures, but the strategic ones are perhaps even more important. How can we reconcile the need to reduce emissions – shipping accounts for around 2.9 per cent of global emissions – without damaging trade, the economy, the port system and related industries?

One approach is to focus not only on batteries – where Asian competitors are well ahead – but also on the development of energy storage systems capable of making the electrification of naval fleets a reality. There are two good reasons for this: the first is that, however advanced they may be, batteries struggle when ‘full load’ is required – a common situation for many types of vessel. The second is that in this sector, in Europe and in Italia, we have a significant presence through both large companies and SMEs. Jaap Gebraad, Secretary-General of the Waterborne Technology Platform, emphasised the value of collaboration: “A joint and coordinated approach is essential to ensure the transition to a competitive, resilient and sustainable shipping sector, by pooling public and private resources.”

Meanwhile, Giorgio Sulligoi, Full Professor of Electrical Energy Systems and Head of the Department of Engineering and Architecture at the University of Trieste, as well as organiser and spokesperson for V-ACCESS, emphasises that ‘the innovations are there; now they need to mature to a stage close to industrialisation”. The technologies proposed by the project develop hybrid systems that combine traditional batteries with supercapacitors and superconducting SMES, which, in this specific case, utilise magnesium diboride (MgB₂) technology. These systems are designed and manufactured by ASG Superconductors, a company owned by the Malacalza family which has already supplied and tested this technology at CERN and, recently, *Nature* has identified this very superconductor – which operates at less extreme temperatures and is therefore more manageable in ‘industrial’ applications – as an ideal technology for energy transmission. Returning to the V-Access project, these hybrid storage systems have been integrated into a ‘microgrid’ that simulates the naval direct-current grid, which is, in fact, the new standard towards which European electricity grids also seem to be moving. The superconducting storage device, which is capable of discharging and recharging energy very quickly without suffering from full-charge or deep-discharge effects, has been successfully tested at the Etef centre in Trieste, recreating the exact conditions on board a ship. The aim is to support the batteries in managing transients and power peaks, ensuring the stability and efficiency of the on-board grid, and the results achieved are significant: seven types of vessel have been identified and three complete use cases developed, with validated systems achieving efficiencies of over 90–95% and reductions in operational emissions of up to 36% in the most energy-intensive scenarios. Three years of work have therefore brought technologies that were previously only on paper or far removed from the shipping world to a TRL (Technological Readiness Level, an index that rates the maturity of a technological proposal on a scale of 1 to 10) of around 5–6.