Control of climate onboard marine vessels

What is the open innovation challenge?

The Innovation Exchange programme is working alongside a large UK company, that operates a number of large marine vessels (ships) with significant cooling and air quality requirements.

The ships are cooled by means of condensers using circulated sea water. Marine condensers are prone to corrosion and fouling. They are looking for a way to replace the existing systems with innovative technology that will reduce the need for maintenance and loss of efficiency due to down-time.

They are looking for solutions that will: 

• Reduce the operational noise associated with Heating Ventilation and Cooling (HVAC)
• Reduce the space occupied by the HVAC equipment 
• Be modular to adapt to vessels of differing sizes

Solutions must also consider the following:

• The fleet operates globally and therefore technology should be capable of operation in extremes of hot and cold
• The proposed solution should be quiet in operation
• A small footprint is desirable
• The equipment will be ship-borne and therefore subject to rapid acceleration and deceleration in all directions
• The environment may subject the equipment to enhanced corrosion

Eligibility

Entrants to this competition must be:

• Established businesses, startups, SMEs or individual entrepreneurs
• UK based or have the intention to set up a UK base

Timeline

Deadline for applications: 5 February 2021

Selection and notification of finalists: 26 February 2021

There is a need for this solution as soon as possible, so this would ideally be a fully developed solution.