Crowley Bets on Hydrogen Fuel Cells to Help Decarbonize Maritime

U.S. shipping company Crowley has emerged as an investor in hydrogen tech company Zero Emission Industries’ (ZEI) Series A funding round led by Chevron New Energies.

ZEI specializes in the design, development, and deployment of marine-specific hydrogen fuel cell power and storage systems. The new funds are expected to help ZEI roll out their next generation fully-integrated marine power system and scale quickly to meet the growing demand within the maritime industry for zero-emission propulsion solutions.

“We believe hydrogen is the best path to energy security and decarbonization of the maritime industry,” said ZEI CEO Dr. Joseph Pratt. “Chevron and Crowley bring a wealth of global experience and an ability to scale deployment across the marine market. We’re excited to leverage this partnership with our industry-leading technology to achieve exponential growth of the marine hydrogen market.”

The investments from Chevron and Crowley will help create an integrated value chain, from hydrogen production to power systems to vessels, to drive value through simplified and cost effective fueling and power solutions made specifically for maritime. This could help accelerate the deployment of hydrogen technologies across the maritime market to create lower carbon and potentially zero emission power for the industry.

“Investing in and developing innovative, clean energy solutions such as hydrogen is critical to reaching the maritime industry’s decarbonization goals. Crowley can only reach net-zero emissions with collaboration that produces new ideas by partners and stakeholders,” said Tom Crowley, the company’s chairman and CEO. “Working with Chevron and ZEI is an opportunity to help lead the shipping and logistics industry – and the communities we serve – to reach a more sustainable future.”

Chevron New Energies launched in 2021 to focus on establishing lower carbon businesses in CCUS, hydrogen, renewable fuels and products, offsets, and other emerging areas.

“As the maritime industry focuses on lower carbon opportunities, hydrogen is well-suited to address these, and we are excited to collaborate with ZEI to advance this potential,” said Austin Knight, vice president of hydrogen for Chevron New Energies. “Chevron believes in the value of partnering to develop hydrogen solutions that have the potential to scale and support a lower carbon world, and this is a step in that direction.”

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