Ferguson Marine Engineering (FME) were delighted to be announced as one of the winners at the highly prestigious Green Awards at the 2019 Greentech Festival in Berlin.
The firm picked up the award for ‘Innovation of the Year’ after their work on the ground-breaking project HySeas III.
The festival was created following a merger between the Greentech Awards and the British Green Awards, and the three founders are green engineers Sven Kruger and Marco Voigt, and former Formula One World Champion racing driver Nico Rosberg. These three had the aim of enthusing people to take up more sustainable lifestyles and Kruger and Voigt had already founded the Greentech Awards. With Rosberg’s vision to help green innovations, the Greentech Festival was born. FME joined former winners including Sir David Attenborough and Prince Charles, holding off respected international competition for their leading work with hydrogen propulsion.
In particular, FME plays a leading role in the HySeas III consortium, which aims to deliver the first sea-going vehicle and passenger ferry which will be fuelled entirely by hydrogen. It is the third and final stage of the HySeas project, which aims to demonstrate that fuel cells may be successfully integrated with a proven marine hybrid electric drive system (electric propulsion, control gear, batteries, etc), along with the associated hydrogen storage and bunkering arrangements.
Gerry Marshall, FME’s CEO, commented: “We are thrilled and immensely proud to have won this award amongst such respected nominees, who are all striving to create a more sustainable, greener world.
The ‘Green Award’ is testament to the incredibly talented workforce at FME as we continue to innovate and challenge the status quo of the marine transport industry.”
Chris Dunn, FME’s Chief Naval Architect, added: “This award recognises the exceptionally hard work of the HySeas III team in proving there is a viable alternative to damaging marine fossil fuels.
Alongside our partners, we will continue to relentlessly chase our ambition to deliver a seagoing ferry powered by energy harvested from the wind and tide.”
Jim McColl, Clyde Blowers Capital’s CEO, remarked: “This is such an outstanding achievement considering that just over four years ago the company was brought out of administration. Over the past four years Gerry Marshall and his management team have built one of the strongest marine technology workforces in the world.
They now have a truly awesome team of marine engineers, naval architects, structural engineers and electrical engineers, who are second to none in the UK or Europe, and have been in great demand by third parties with requests for their skills both in the UK and abroad.”
