Inspired by kitesurfing, French firms want to deploy the same wind technology to propel everything from yachts to cargo ships in order to cut the shipping industry’s massive carbon footprint.
The sector is under fresh pressure to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels as the International Maritime Organization (IMO) sealed a deal on Friday that raises its emissions-reduction targets.
In Arcachon Bay in southwest France, the start-up Beyond The Sea tested a blue inflatable kite sail the size of a small studio to pull a specially designed catamaran across the water.
Photo: AFP
“Are you ready to jibe?” company founder Yves Parlier said, using kitesurfing lingo to speak to this team of engineers steering the 25 square meter kite.
In kitesurfing, riders use their hands to control the kite, but on Parlier’s SeaKite catamaran, an automated traction system is used for the kite, with winches and artificial intelligence that adapts the sail’s position to the wind conditions.
The goal is to design much bigger kite sails that could one day pull yachts, trawlers and even container ships.
“It’s a phenomenal system of traction which allows one to reduce fuel consumption by 20 percent on average,” said Parlier, a former winner of transatlantic sailing competitions.
The potential is huge given that there are nearly 100,000 merchant ships crisscrossing the oceans and 4.6 million fishing trawlers in the world.
The Wind Ship association, which was created in 2019 in France with the aim of greening the maritime sector, says the market could be worth 4 billion euros (US$4.39 billion) by 2030 with around 1,400 vessels fitted with such kites.
In March next year, Beyond The Sea plans to carry out similar tests using its specially designed kites off the waters of Norway and Japan and in the Mediterranean.
The company hopes to double the size of its kites every year, reaching 800 square meters in four years, executive director Marc Thienpont said.
The shipping industry has to find alternatives to fossil fuels, with the IMO on Friday setting a net zero emissions target for “close to 2050,” with progressive reduction goals of at least 20 percent by 2020 and at least 70 percent by 2040 compared to 2008 levels.
While the previous target was for a 50 percent reduction by mid-century, climate campaigners said the decision did not go far enough to help the battle against global warming.
Airseas, another French company in which European aviation giant Airbus SE holds 11 percent stake, is testing a kite spanning 500 square meters — almost twice the size of two tennis courts — which it hopes to double for larger ships.
The company, based in the western city of Nantes, late last year fitted out a bulk carrier belonging to the Japanese firm K. Line, its biggest client, which has placed five confirmed orders for its Seawing.
It has also kitted a roll-on, roll-off ship transporting equipment for A320 planes between the French port of Saint-Nazaire and the port of Mobile in the southern US state of Alabama where Airbus has a factory.
Another alternative solution has surfaced with the French firm Chantiers de l’Atlantique, whose Solid Sail designed for ocean liners is made up of panels fitted to a rigid sail that can be inclined to allow the ships to pass under bridges.
There are also semi-rigid sails manufactured by Ayro and used on the 121-meter-long cargo ship Canopee to transport elements of the Ariane 6 launcher from Europe to French Guiana.
Some new French shipping companies are meanwhile using vessels only harnessing wind power such as Zephyr et Boree, Windcoop, Neoline ou Towt.
“In France, there is a level of operational maturity which allows commercialization” of the adapted kites and sails, Wind Ship’s Lise Detrimont said.
However, if the sector has the wind in its sails, its attractiveness suffers from a price of a barrel of heavy fuel oil currently at its lowest.
“Maritime transport costs nothing until environmental regulations come into force,” Detrimont said.
The carbon-free fuel lobby is also a brake, she said, pointing out that its cost was “five to seven times” higher than conventional fuel oil and advocating its hybrid use along with sailing.
The sector is in talks with the French government to recognize wind as a fuel. Detrimont said that with this in hand, over 30,000 jobs would be created in 2030.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
STILL UNCLEAR: Several aspects of the policy still need to be clarified, such as whether the exemptions would expand to related products, PwC Taiwan warned The TAIEX surged yesterday, led by gains in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 100 percent tariff on imported semiconductors — while exempting companies operating or building plants in the US, which includes TSMC. The benchmark index jumped 556.41 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 24,003.77, breaching the 24,000-point level and hitting its highest close this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. TSMC rose NT$55, or 4.89 percent, to close at a record NT$1,180, as the company is already investing heavily in a multibillion-dollar plant in Arizona that led investors to assume
RSS