Harnessing wind for sustainable car shipping

Once upon a time, the fortunes of global trade rode in tall-masted carracks, navigating airstreams to connect continents and create the new world. Centuries later we’re coming full circle as our need for sustainable power leads us to again harness nature’s omnipresent fuel: wind.

Nowadays, modern tech and innovation sees Volvo Cars as one of 11 partners joining forces to develop the Orcelle Wind – the world’s first wind-powered deepsea roll-on-roll-off (RoRo) car and truck transport vessel. These types of ships are designed for the international transport of cars and trucks across the sea; for example, from Europe to the USA.

Imagine it: future Volvo electric cars sailing by the thousands across the Atlantic on sustainable wind power. This is important because today’s sea transport relies totally on fossil fuel power – with some ships burning thousands of litres of diesel per hour – and any CO2 emissions associated with the shipping of our vehicles contributes to each car’s total lifecycle emissions. So if we are to achieve our ambition of becoming a climate neutral company by 2040, every contributing factor matters.

Wallenius Wilhelmsen, a global RoRo shipping company from Norway, is the project coordinator and has an ambition for the Orcelle Wind to commence sailing in late 2026 or early 2027. The Orcelle Wind is the first vessel from what’s called the Oceanbird concept, for primarily wind-powered vessels. The concept shows that it’s theoretically possible to reduce emissions from vessels by up to 90 percent if all emissions-influencing factors are aligned.

Wallenius Wilhelmsen and project partners – including Volvo Cars – have secured a Horizon Europe funding totalling EUR 9m to support building a RoRo sailing vessel. Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation. The next five years will see the Orcelle Wind come to life through all aspects of planning, building and operating a wind-powered vessel.

Orcelle Wind will be 220 metres long and have a capacity for over 7,000 cars; and will also be capable of carrying breakbulk and rolling equipment.

Roger Strevens, VP Global Sustainability at Wallenius Wilhelmsen, said: “The Horizon Europe EU funding shows the concept stood up to the scrutiny of the EU funding authorities and that they had the confidence to give it their support.”

Our role as a partner is to provide our user perspective. We’ll explore our demands for vessels transporting our fully electric cars and will contribute to the analysis of supply chain design. And we have our own questions to answer: how would we plan our order-to-distribution flow when we need to add time for wind-powered sea transport, meanwhile ensuring we live up to our customers’ expectations?

The EU grant is divided between the 11 partners – so we can all bring different points of view to the table – hopefully creating a 360-degree perspective on wind propulsion. Topics include weather routing, vessel design, supply chain orchestration, crew training, plus test rig installation on an existing vessel. The project’s scope is to make the Orcelle Wind ready for commercial trading.

The EU project combines the investments needed for full-scale demonstration and data capture with advanced models and tools for wing propulsion vessels. Beyond the demonstrator’s vessel, the partners will use the models and tools to develop advanced conceptual designs and operational plans for multiple vessel types to apply the wing solution.

Anna Karamigkou, PhD, Project Officer from the European Commission, said: “The Orcelle project is an important step for a large-scale shift towards wind as the main propulsion. With a technology that is relevant for such a high percentage of vessels, and the ability to drastically reduce emissions from shipping, we see that there are great societal benefits for the EU to reap from this project.”

Staffan Johannesson, head of sustainability in our supply chain organisation, says the potential offered by projects like this, where we partner with other companies to innovate new solutions, is a good example of our need for myriad ways to reduce carbon emissions across all company activities.

“We’re continually exploring sustainability opportunities across all aspects of our supply chain, and indeed across our overall business. Our list of initiatives keeps growing as we work towards our ambition of becoming a climate neutral company by 2040.”

Learn more about the Oceanbird concept: https://www.theoceanbird.com/the-oceanbird-concept/