Financing ships with wind-assisted propulsion technologies

Abstract

The issue of financing green ships as well as of financing decarbonization of maritime operations has already attracted the interest of experts from the academia and the industry. Given that green ships do not enjoy a freight premium and their operating expenses are at the level of conventional assets, the inherently higher capital expenses required for green assets deteriorate profit margins and deter investors from relevant outlays. Hence, financial engineering is required in order to make investors indifferent to cost and riveted to the decarbonization aspects of any ship financing project. This paper summarizes research results and presents illustrative cases and structures. The analysis considers sharing economy models, such as the ‘pay as you save’, that perfectly suit solutions involving wind-assisted propulsion, and will also identify risks and ways of mitigating them. The approach considered may assist in the analysis of various wind-assisted and power-boosting technologies.