Wärtsilä and Solvang to collaborate on pilot CCS project

Wärtsilä Exhaust Treatment and Norwegian shipowner, Solvang ASA, have announced a joint project to retrofit a carbon capture and storage (CCS) system on board the 21,000m³ ethyene carrier, Clipper Eos. The companies are aiming for a 70% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions in the ship’s exhaust gas.

The installation will follow development of a 1-MW land-based system which is being finalised by Wärtsilä and likely to be ready before the end of this year. The Clipper Eos retrofit is scheduled to be completed by 2023, the companies said.

The vessel has been on timecharter to Japan’s Marubeni Corp since its delivery in 2019. Marubeni has expressed its intention to support the project and enable the partners to complete the installation and necessary testing. 

Wärtsilä Exhaust Treatment director, Sigurd Jenssen, said that the retrofit of a commercially viable CCS unit demonstrates that the technology is only two or three years away from providing another means to aid shipping’s decarbonisation drive.

Solvang’s CEO, Edvin Endresen, commented: “Carbon capture and storage is an exciting development that we are proud to support, and strongly believe that this technology could be an important key to decarbonise the world’s deep-sea fleet.”