Viking took delivery of the newest addition to its fleet, the “Viking Neptune” on November 10th in a ceremony at Ancona, Italy. It is the first ship in the cruise industry to have a small Hydrogen fuel system installed.
The ship is built by the Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri and is the ninth ship in its class. The vessel can accommodate 930 passengers, is 47, 842 gross tons and is 749 feet long. The Viking Neptune is identical in every aspect to its sister ships save for the added Hydrogen fuel cell system.
The Hydrogen cell modules are of the low-temperature PEM type, fuelled with Hydrogen gas and room air. Fincantieri reports that the hydrogen cell module in the ship produces only 100kW of power and is being used as a test system to determine how hydrogen could be used at a larger scale in their upcoming ships.
Fincantieri and Viking have strengthened their collaboration to reduce GHG emissions from their ships. As a first step, they are placing a greater emphasis on R&D to use hydrogen more extensively on the ships. The two companies have already designed a new ship configuration which will be used for ships that are to be delivered after 2024. The new configuration has spaces and arrangements to accommodate larger hydrogen tanks, fuel cell modules, and other auxiliary systems.
The second step involves plans for hydrogen-based generation systems, which will be able to produce a total power of around 6 to 7 MW. This would be the largest such system ever used aboard a cruise ship and will be able to achieve slow steaming navigation and smokeless operations in ports. Viking will be able to install these systems on their new builds as well as retrofit them onto their older vessels.
The opinions expressed herein are the author’s and not necessarily those of News2Sea.