Ocean Charger Nominated for Ocean Solutions Award

VARD has announced that the Ocean Charger concept has been nominated for the Ocean Solutions Award 2023. Officially launched in February this year, the Ocean Charger Concept is a new technological solution for energy transfer to battery-powered ships offshore.

The Ocean Charger concept is one of five nominees for the Ocean Solutions Award. The 2023 finalists impressed the judges with their ingenuity and potential to revolutionize the industry. The shortlist consists of:

VARD | Ocean Charger Concept

Silverstream Technologies | Air lubrication system

Alfawall | Oceanbird Wind assist technology

WinGD | Compression ratio technology for two-stroke marine engines

Kongsberg Digital | Vessel Insight and Kognifai Marketplace

The nominees were selected by an international jury of experts tasked to assess nominations on the following criteria:

• Originality of the service, design, concept or equipment item
• Impact with regard to either ocean sustainability, logistics, or ship operation
• Addressing current or anticipated challenges within the industry
• Expected industry benefit generally, and users/customer benefit specifically
• The application of best practices or ideas from other industries

Speaking about the nomination Håvard Vollset Lien, VP of Research & Innovation in the Vard Group commented; “We are thrilled that Ocean Charger has been nominated to Ocean Solutions Award, and for us it is a confirmation that the Ocean Charger solution is a relevant and important piece in tomorrows’ shipping operations. The project is well underway and we are presently simulating the offshore charging operation in a digital environment, to verify the solution before finalizing the shipboard version. Full-scale testing in the North Sea will commence during the winter of 2023-24.”

Green Maritime Transition

Alongside a strong consortium of industry and research partners, VARD will lead the way from research to testing, validation, and commercialization of these new technologies with the work being performed over three years.

Under construction at VARD Søviknes, the CSOV (Construction Service Operation Vessel) REM Power is the first vessel to partake in the testing of Ocean Charger Concept. By connecting vessels to the power grid in the wind farm/harbor and charging batteries regularly, the aim is to power operations with minimal additional energy sources.

Vard Design will lead the work together with sister companies Seaonics and Vard Electro, partners Rem Offshore, Solstad Offshore, SINTEF Energi, SINTEF Ocean, DigiCat, Sustainable Energy, Equinor, Source Galileo Norge, Corvus Energy, Plug, Shoreline, Sustainable Energy, University of Bergen, Norce and Maritime CleanTech.

The winner of the Ocean Solutions Award will be announced during Nor-Shipping this June.