UK’s first marine hydrogen injection system funded for Orkney ferry

Life in the Orkney Islands depends on ferries more than anywhere else in the UK. Twenty of the 70 islands in the archipelago 16km off the north coast of Caithness are inhabited, and their residents depend on the regular network of small ferries that ply the heavily tidal channels between the islands for communication, provisions, education and many aspects of their everyday existence.

Orkney is also one of the UK’s major centres for renewable energy: the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) is sited in its second-largest town, Stromness, and the wave and tidal systems it is testing are connected to the grid, wind turbines are commonplace (offshore turbines must be used onshore, because the winds are so strong) and the mainland has pioneered the use of hydrogen generated by renewable energy for several applications.

The latest of these applications, the use of hydrogen directly injected into the fuel supply of one of the ferries, has now been funded by Innovate UK. The HyDIME project (Hydrogen Diesel Injection in a Marine Environment), which formally started on 1 August, has been granted £430,000 to design and integrate a hydrogen diesel dual fuel injection system. The 12-month project is intended to de-risk the technology, which will be globally unique during the life of the project.