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13 January 2022

New Challenge from the Austrian Competence Centre: Climate-friendly and low-emission authority boats for the Danube

The Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action (BMK) with its Shipping Supervision Authorities (SFA) along the Danube wants to move traffic on waterways into the focus of climate-neutral mobility. The 14-meter-long service boats of the SFA currently run on diesel and need to become low emission. Companies who want to address this challenge can submit their solution online by 27 February 2022. When doing so they can also state whether they are interested in a stakeholder dialogue with other companies.

The nautically trained administrative police secure and regulate the traffic of ships on the Danube. This includes, in particular, monitoring shipping, issuing orders to users of the international waterway, but also providing assistance for damaged vessels. Shipping supervision employees are out and about on the Danube every day to carry out their supervision. With this challenge the SFA wants to make a contribution to environmental protection and focus on low-emission vehicles and components in the future. Initial research, mainly in German-speaking countries, has shown that there are still no low-emission boats available on the market that meet the requirements.

The immediate goal of this market exploration is to learn about companies that offer or will offer low-emission workboats, as well as about companies that can make such boats possible by contributing certain components (e.g. partial solution for propulsion or energy supply). In addition to already conclusive concepts, relevant partial contributions are therefore possible and expressly desired. The medium-term goal is, if the result of the Challenge shows technical and economic feasibility, to go on to the realization of a corresponding prototype.

More information on the challenge and the requirements of the needed boats can be found here