This strange ship wants to produce green electricity and deliver it to the isolated territories

Will the ports one day welcome renewable electricity cargoes?This is likely, according to Farwind's ambitions.This French start-up has designed a tidal ship capable of generating and transporting green electricity for unpinforced areas.

Imagine a more or less distant future in which the holds of the tankers would not be filled with oil, but with gigawattheures of renewable electricity.Vessels that would land their cargo on islands and isolated territories that have abandoned their thermal power plants.

This vision could well become reality, through the swinging ship project designed by Farwind.This young company hatched in the summer of 2020 in the Nantes Central School.

She imagined a boat capable of producing and transporting green electricity from a rather original system.The boat moves by means of 4 Rotors Flettner: cylinders with vertical rotation which exploit "the Magnus effect" of the wind.This movement is simply converted into electricity by hydrogenists (turbines activated by the flow of water aboard a boat) located under the hull.The Rotors Flettner generating a driving force perpendicular in the sense of the wind, the ship takes advantage when it blows.However, their operation requires engulfing 10 to 20 % of the energy produced by hydrogenerators.

Central ship plan designed by Farwind / Visual: Farwind

Battery, hydrogen or methanol?

To store 80 to 90 % remaining electricity, Farwind is working on three options.The first consists in injecting it into batteries, the following two in transforming it into hydrogen or methanol via electrolysers.The 80 m long ship for 20 to 25 m wide should have enough space to accommodate all these equipment.The energy would then be delivered to the isolated territories by landing the batteries or fuels there.

Each boat will develop 4 × 2 to 2.5 MW for an annual production estimated at 10 GWh.The boat can move to the most favorable wind sectors, its charge factor would reach 60 to 70 %.It is much more than offshore wind farms, which claim between 29 % and 48 % in Europe.Farwind is currently testing a replica of its concept on a 1/14 scale.It is a simple catamaran flanked by a 3 m high rotor for 40 cm in diameter.

The company has raised 1 million euros in public and private loans as well as in equity.She hopes to launch her first ship in 2024 and aims for a "catalog" price of around 10 million euros per vessel by 2030.Farwind could then compete with the very central floating thermal problems used by many countries victims of energy instability.