The five projects, representing £3.3m in funding from the Department for Transport and delivered in partnership with Innovate UK, concluded in March 2022 and comprised:

• A feasibility study into the development of a National Clean Maritime Demonstration Hub in Grimsby, a ‘first step’ towards the development of an infrastructure and support ecosystem built to accelerate the deployment of clean maritime technology
• Innovations in electric Crew Transfer Vessels (CTVs) through the Artemis eFoiler-CTV concept
• A demonstration of a world-first electric charging point prior to real-world in-field trials
• An investigation into data-led emission management
• A feasibility study on the development of an offshore wind power barge, providing vessel-to-vessel charging capability.

ForeCoast® Marine was used in project 5 to simulate the design and operation of a mothership charging vessel, hosting a number of electric CTVs. The conceptual mothership uses in-field charging which utilizes the power generated from the wind farm to power a flexible, zero emission swappable battery solution capable of removing diesel emissions from offshore wind Operations and Maintenance. Once the vessels’ operations were simulated using ForeCoast® Marine, the associated emissions and financial metrics were then compared to those of traditional marine gas oil driven vessels, allowing the environmental and economic feasibility of this disruptive innovation to be assessed.

The outputs produced from the five projects are expected to form the building blocks of future clean maritime programmes within offshore wind.