At the start of this year the British government issued a document describing a £30M investment in new decarbonisation funding. This is designed to boost maritime jobs, both on board ships and at coastal ports, while also attempting to meet the requirements set by zero-emission shipping.
Plan for Change
This is a government initiative, where funding is designed to encourage regional growth, and set in motion private investment. Previous efforts have inspired at least 300 organisations from across the UK to get involved in the maritime industry and secured some £100M of private investment. This has been to be a boost for employment opportunities, particularly in coastal areas, but will also increase the amount of freight being carried since transport and storage facilities will benefit from this funding. The Plan for Change is an effort to decarbonize sea travel and an effort to pave the way for the UK to garner a reputation for being a clean energy superpower.
Clean Maritime Demonstratable Competition
This current round of CMDC is just one of the five that have come before and is designed to support new technologies, including, for the maritime sector, propulsion methods offering a greener alternative, including electric, hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, wind power and others. Initiatives from previous rounds of the competition have enabled the installation of Britain’s first electric charge point network across ports in the Southwest. Also, the funding allowed for the largest ever retrofit of a hydrogen research vessel in Wales and a carbon capture system on a vessel which at the time of installation was state-of-the art.
Britain’s Maritime Minister paid a visit to Hull where £3.7M of CMDC investment has previously been used to initiate a flagship project by GT Wings called Airwing. The project has inspired local investment and job opportunities since the innovative wind propulsion system has been built and assembled at the Alexandra Dock. This will surely be the start of many, since emissions on a vessel making use of this system represents a reduction of emissions of 30%.
Such a groundbreaking initiative is making Hull a centre for skilled work, the like of which has rarely even been thought of before, let alone created. It brings economic activity to the city and positions it as a centre for maritime innovation.
The application window for the sixth round of CMDC closed on the 16th of April 2025, so we will start to see the effects in the second half of the year. It is becoming a world-renowned R&D grant-based initiative and those responsible say they are looking forward to seeing participation from above and beyond the maritime sector, focusing on physical, digital, system and skilled-based innovation.
This sixth round of the CMDC initiative brings the total invested within the scheme to £159M. The effect on maritime jobs, the industries and sectors that employ them, is immense, and since the amount of trade taken by ships, some 90% when taken by volume currently, it is vital to a huge number of economies and their government’s GDP.