Best Practice

CONDOR - Zero-emission transport for inland waterway sector

The CONDOR H₂ project is an outgrowth of the RH₂INE initiative.

The project consortia consist of 6 ports and more than 40 partners along the hydrogen value chain (hydrogen supplier, technology provider, ship owner) and was launched in May 2023. It aims to remove barriers to zero emission transport for the inland waterway sector as a whole, and market-readiness of these solutions requires 50 zero emission vessels to operate by 2030, reducing CO2 emissions by 100,000 tonnes per year.

Condor H₂ will provide hydrogen storage and fuel cells with a battery pack on a pay-per-use basis, enabling ships to become zero emission with limited upfront investment for ship owners. The hydrogen will be supplied in modular, standardized and swappable 'tank-tainers', allowing longer voyages.

Development of a hydrogen supply concept for inland shipping  

In the course of the work in RH₂INE, it became clear that the development and complex process of obtaining a recommendation from the CESNI (Comité Européen pour l’Élaboration de Standards dans le Domaine de Navigation Intérieure) for the operation of fuel cell ships means an enormous amount of additional work for the individual shipping companies.

At the same time, an early start in the development and construction of the ships is absolutely essential in order to achieve the goals of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in the area of hydrogen in inland navigation and also the sector goals of the federal government. To this end, the shipping companies HGK Shipping, HTS and Rhenus, together with the company Argo Anleg, ZBT and Lloyd Register, have decided to embark on a joint project to develop a common, standardised and approvable H₂ supply concept. This will make it possible to realise considerable synergies and significantly reduce the workload for the individual shipping companies.

Specifically, the project pursues the following goals:  

• Elaborating a recommendation as a basis for an H₂ supply concept on an inland vessel to facilitate the individual ship approval of the individual shipowners; 
• Obtaining a recommendation for an exchangeable tank container to be used as a hydrogen tank on an inland vessel, including stackability;  
• Determining permissible positions of an exchangeable tank container on the inland vessel;
• Standardisation of the interfaces, including the filling and withdrawal connection

The final report of the project completed in 2023 will be published soon.