Since the beginning of the year, Argo-Anleg is a partner company in the high-profile EU project SYNERGETICS. The aim of the project is to decarbonise coastal and inland shipping. To this end, the international project partners are to use synergies to develop solutions for the C02-neutral conversion and retrofitting of existing ships and fleets that are suitable for everyday use. After the kick-off meeting in Duisburg in February, the project consortium has now reached the next milestone and launched a new project website. The new website documents the ongoing progress in its blog section and answers the most important questions of the project.
What is SYNERGETICS?
SYNERGETICS is an Innovation Action funded by the Horizon Europe programme of the EU which addresses the potentials for greening of inland and coastal shipping by means of retrofit.
Why SYNERGETICS?
Shipping decarbonisation and air-pollutants emission reduction by means of retrofit is an active field, but a fragmented one. Many activities are simultaneously being carried out in different research and industrial projects and initiatives, but the efforts aimed at integration of the experiences gained through such activities were limited so far. The uptake of greening practices stemming from other transportation fields is limited by the absence of cross-sectoral standardisation. The greening of the waterborne transport is being effectively curbed by the existing safety regulations which often lag behind the technology development. Finally, the greening efforts are hindered by a “chicken-and-egg” problem: the difficulties in making the right decision with respect to the choice of the greening technology may lead to a belief that the available technologies are not ripe, which, in turn, may lead to decelerating of the process.
To unlock the greening potentials by means of retrofit, and to enable its acceleration in inland and coastal navigation, SYNERGETICS aims at removal of these barriers by ensuring effective synergies between the stakeholders within and outside of the shipping sector, and by demonstrating the most promising and mature retrofit technologies.
How SYNERGETICS works?
SYNERGETICS creates synergies between the leading research institutions in the field of ship hydrodynamics and energy transition, innovation centres and shipping industry associations, shipbuilding industry, regulatory bodies, vessel owners, and technology providers, as well as between different European regions.
