Integrated skills and talent for Short Straits ferry electrification (IAST)
This project responds to the clean maritime training and skills scope of the CMDC6 feasibility call, relating to ferry traffic for the Short Straits (Dover to Calais and Dunkirk). The Short Straits accounts for 8 per cent on all UK maritime CO2 emissions, a transition to electrical power has begun.
The project will ascertain the skills and related training infrastructure to support a forthcoming £840m investment by DFDS for a new fleet of electric ferries, ongoing £250m investments by P&O in hybrid ferries and the forecast £150m plus investment by the Port of Dover to deliver shore side electrical infrastructure.
By bringing together skills and supply chain partners, the project enhances the consortium engaged in the technical findings from SHORE programmes CMDC1, CMDC2 and SSAF. These projects forecast an electrical energy demand increases for Dover from the current 5 MW peak to over 160MW by 2033 associated with investment.
We will ascertain the scale, level and location of new skills required. We will build on work of the Institute of Marine Engineering Science and Technology (IMarEST) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) who have an ongoing record of work in this area. We will apply this regionally and to the wider electrical infrastructure supply chain. The project will focus on international ferries and take a holistic approach to skills to include safety, regulation, business transformation, data science and engineering all specifically for a roll on roll off (roro) international ferry environment.
Our innovation is to assess this transformation for vessel, port and power infrastructure in a single piece of work. To determine change in diversity, location and responsibilities for an entirely new engineering need. To map, current skills needs and those in 2030 and 2035 will illustrate staging.
Current regional skills providers in further and higher education do not currently offer courses, have trainers or capacity to support the skills matching this investment and transformation. This project will help them plan for investment in resources and equipment. The project will benchmark new skills needs for industry by the engagement of an established large business, Siemens and other regional energy employers. It will then apply the specific needs for maritime.
The outcome will be an exemplar project for a programme to ensure an investment more than £1billion is not put at risk by skill shortages and the productivity of the new systems deliver all the benefits they should.
Led by the newly formed Short Straits Maritime Cluster (SSMC) the programme will engage the supply chain as well as final end-users to ensure it offers best value to the region.
The partners involved in the delivery of this project are
- Short Straits Maritime Cluster (Lead Partner)
- Port of Dover
- University of Kent
- Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce.
The Collaborators involved in the delivery of this project are
- DFDS Seaways (Dover)
- East Kent College
- Siemens
- SSE
- Scheider Electrics.
