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Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore and Bureau Veritas Solutions are participating in the Wind for Shipping (W4S), a research and development program funded by the Interreg North-West Europe programme.
It was launched in January 2025 and will run through July 2028.
The project brings together 12 partners, including shipping companies, shipyards, research institutes and regional authorities from across Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands.
It aims to fasten the transition of the maritime sector towards low-emission shipping.
Wind for Shipping will focus on developing and adopting wind propulsion technologies, mainly wingsails and rotorsails, to harness wind power and decrease fuel consumption by atleast 20 to 40%.
This initiative aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from commercial ships. The project’s total budget is €5.7 million, of which €3.4 million is co-financed by the European Union.
It also aligns with European climate goals and addresses key barriers to the deployment of wind-assisted propulsion.
The project would decrease commercial production costs, enhance the manufacturing process and strengthen the value chain from design and production to installation and operations.
It also aims to strengthen maritime innovation systems by fostering collaboration among coastal areas. By aligning research, production and logistics capabilities, the project contributes to building Europe’s position as a Maritime Centre of Excellence for Green Shipping.
Bureau Veritas will bring its expertise in performance assessment to the project. It will provide CFD and weather routing calculations and customised onboard measurement data.
With the help of hydrostructure and energy efficiency simulations, BV will develop modelling technologies to evaluate the intrinsic performance of the ship.
Additionally, it will support exploration of composite manufacturing processes to allow for large-scale production of wind propulsion systems, a major step to make the solutions viable for widespread commercial use.