Company: Smart Green Shipping
Founder: Diane Gilpin
Website: https://smartgreenshipping.com
About Smart Green Shipping
Smart Green Shipping (SGS) unlocks wind power for the shipping industry, which accounts for 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It does this by building and financing autonomous, retrofittable wind technologies to help reduce carbon emissions by up to 30%.
The first in its product suite will be FastRig – a 100% recyclable aluminium wing sail – with a land-based rig due to launch in January 2024, and installation on a ship in September 2024. There are 60,000 ships in the global shipping fleet and an estimated 40,000 of which are suitable ships for wind assist technology including tankers and dry bulkers. FastRig is a 100% recyclable aluminium wingsail that can be retrofitted onto existing shipping vessels. SGS’ suite of hardware and software products have been designed to make it easy for the market to access wind power and to reduce ship operators’ dependence on volatile fuel markets by giving them enhanced fuel autonomy.
SGS aims to maximise production of the wing sails in the UK and revitalise the Scottish shipping industry. Its smart technology knows where to position the sails to optimally capture the wind and when to lower them during still conditions and storms or to navigate under bridges and in harbours. With FastRig, SGS is presenting the shipping industry with a proven short-term solution to help fulfil decarbonisation.
Smart Green Shipping was founded in 2014 by Diane Gilpin, an ardent climate campaigner who believes the climate emergency can be addressed by technology and innovation – a sector that she has worked in for more than 30 years. Di was also part of the Cellnet team that launched the first cellular telephone in the UK, and was the only woman to manage an F3 team and went on to manage an offshore yacht racing team in the BT Global Challenge.
Wind is a crucial route towards a greener shipping sector, with The International Windship Association (IWSA) stating that wind is an energy source that could deliver savings of up to 1% of global GHG emissions. Wind also has the potential to lower the total cost of the green energy transition in the shipping industry by effectively saving enough in fuel costs over the next 25 years to meet that transition price tag to the tune of $1-1.5 trillion.
SGS have already solidified partnerships with some of the world’s most notable cargo owners such as DRAX. To test its solutions, SGS has undergone a 12-month feasibility analysis with Drax, which has demonstrated that ships that are equipped with SGS’ FastRig wind-assist technology can reduce fuel consumption and lower their GHG emissions by at least 20%.
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