Our Work
Joint Innovation Program
Overview
Maritime Blue facilitates strategic initiatives, Joint Innovation Projects (JIPs), business development, and teaming for grant opportunities to develop markets, implement demonstration projects, and drive early-stage technology to commercialization. Modeling other global centers of excellence, we use the collective strength of our Cluster to share resources, take advantage of funding mechanisms, and support strategic and feasibility planning.
Collaboratives
Sustainable Maritime Fuels Collaborative
The Sustainable Maritime Fuels Collaborative brings together supply and demand stakeholders to accelerate production and use of sustainable maritime fuels and technologies in Washington.
Blue Wind Supply Chain Collaborative
The Maritime Blue Wind collaborative is a nonregulatory coalition with a mission to support the strategic development and activation of Washington’s participation in the West Coast-wide floating OSW supply chain through a collaborative and community benefits approach.
Quiet Sound
Quiet Sound is a collaborative program to reduce impacts to Southern Resident killer whales from large commercial vessels.
Joint Innovation Projects
Zero Emission Fast Foil Ferry
Timeline: March 2021 – December 2022
A zero-emission, clean transit concept for a high-speed hydrofoil craft using lightweight carbon fiber hull construction. Vision is to help relaunch the “Mosquito” fleet & reduce vehicle traffic. A collaborative approach is needed to address challenges & opportunities. The foil ferry can offer a safe, reliable & cost-effective option, while minimizing the environmental impact on air & water quality as well as marine life. Washington companies to develop state of the art technology & competence to support our region as a center of excellence for maritime decarbonization.
Area of Focus
Project Scope
- Advance design spiral from concept to preliminary design, to contract design for construction
- Economic & environmental benefits & impacts
- Terminal & shoreside infrastructure requirements
- Materials & construction
- Routing analysis & operations
- Advance detection & avoidance strategies
- Regulatory, testing & permitting
Hybrid funding model for first demonstration
Benefits
More efficient vessel, reduced emissions, improved commuter & transit options, quieting & strike avoidance to reduce marine mammal impacts, platform for WA manufacturing, innovation & economic development.
Partners
Tacoma Blue Edge Network
Timeline: September 2021 – December 2022 and beyond
The Tacoma Tideflats area is uniquely poised to insert itself as an early adopter of private, enterprise scale 5G network and edge computing technology and set itself as a trailblazer on the path to innovation and sustainability to foster a growing maritime economy. The Tacoma Tideflats would benefit from the digitization of transportation, real time awareness of the port area, just-in-time arrival of vessels and lower carbon emissions due to shorter waiting times for port calls.
Area of Focus
See More
Four key themes emerged from the feasibility study which was conducted over 3 months:
- Orchestration and Efficiency: Working together in new ways (enabled by data and technology) to create efficiency and transparency across the Tideflats, offering an end-to-end view of the supply chain.
- Infrastructure Modernization: Improve the physical and virtual infrastructure including where equipment is moved and stored, traffic management, connectivity dead zones, siloed data, manual processes and cybersecurity.
- Improving Safety: Concerns for worker and community safety and the desire to consider new ways of operating to put safety first.
- Enabling a Sustainable Future: Put ecological and community health at the forefront of Tacoma Tideflats operations, technologies and processes.
Recommendations and Next Steps
Washington Maritime Blue is prepared to further engage with coalition partners to pilot a private 5G network. This allows constituents to see what’s possible by establishing a network proof-of-concept (POC) zone and testing a subset of key uses cases that benefit a broader group.
Opportunity 1 – Center for Urban Waters & 5G Open Innovation Lab for Ports
In order to meet the use cases laid out by the City of Tacoma, University of Washington – Tacoma, and Washington Maritime Blue’s Tacoma Maritime Innovation Incubator, we would ensure that Zone 1 of the above network layout has dense coverage including the location of edge computing hardware. Providing access to a private network to innovators and startups seeking to apply IoT technology to blue economy sectors will amplify the Tacoma area as the prime region in North America for tech development. The Field Lab would also allow Washington Maritime Blue and partners to facilitate and convene specific technology challenges that address key use cases benefiting from shared data and utilization. It would also enable further development of the Northwest Seaport Alliance and Port of Tacoma’s vision for a “Port Community System”.
Opportunity 2 – Husky Terminal
Building out dense coverage over Zone 4 enables early adoption and pilot use cases for Husky Terminal and allows a broader set of stakeholders to see value in the network for their own operations. It would begin to generate vast data sets that could be used to inform shared data solutions. This also begins to open up markets for current and future solutions providers.
Opportunity 3 – Other interested port operator or manufacturer
If, during early planning, another early adopter is identified and ready to build on a slice of the network, we could provide appropriate coverage based on the details of the proposed use cases.
Through knowledge sharing, collaborative project development, and enabling an ecosystem for innovation, the Tacoma Tideflats will collectively realize a shared vision for a sustainable and equitable economy and port community.
Project Scope
Partner with the 5G Open Innovation Lab and major technology partners to bring state-of-the-art edge computing power to the Tacoma Tideflats area and disseminate access to that computing power across the Tideflats region via 5G towers.
Launch a jointly promoted Maritime Blue/5G OI Lab Field Lab with the intention of making Tacoma a destination for startup innovation, industry collaborations, and academic research. Collect the data we need to address the major difficulties we face so that the Port can make data driven decisions.
Benefits
Tacoma would instantly become the most technologically advanced regions in North America. Tacoma could more easily recruit companies, knowing infrastructure existed to prove their concepts, and Tacoma could become a global leader in new technology in the maritime sector.
None of this leads to replacing existing companies and employees. This project does not promote port automation or push out companies who do not need technology. It simply provides massive quantities of real-time, persistent data that can be used by anyone who wants to make Tacoma a better place to work and live.
Partners
Produced By
Tacoma Tideflats 5G Network Feasibility Study Docs
Tacoma Green Hydrogen
Regional collaboration to make Tacoma, WA the production and distribution nerve center for scaling up the use of clean hydrogen for port and maritime applications. Alternative fuels and energy are needed to reduce emissions from transportation and port operations. Hydrogen shows great promise, if it can be generated at scale in our region from renewable energy, as well as stored and transported in a safe manner. Tacoma Power has excess clean hydropower generation that can be utilized to make Green Hydrogen. They also need to provide energy for cold-ironing services to berthed vessels, which have large variances in power demand and timing.
Area of Focus
Project Scope
- Build and scale a Maritime hydrogen ecosystem through a project that demonstrates the concept of a port-based hydrogen (H2) solution utilizing Formic Acid for lower cost, safer storage and movement.
- This demonstration system will create a liquid H2 carrier (LHC) directly from green renewable electricity, water and recycled CO2. This unique technology is provided by partners: OCO Inc., whose electrolyzer technology creates Formic Acid LHC and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, that provides reformer technology to release the H2 from formic acid when needed.
- Tacoma Power will provide the green electricity, primarily from hydroelectricity (97% carbon free) and will also be the H2 end user to generate energy on demand for cold-ironing services to berthed vessels.
- DNV to provide techno-economic modeling so demo can be used for scaling-out H2 in other maritime applications such as trucks, trains, vessels and cargo handling.
Benefits
This approach provides a large-scale local production and use for H2 in maritime ports that can be stored as a liquid carrier in the form of Formic Acid, overcoming some of the key storage and movement challenges. This demonstration has the potential to show ports, utilities, and numerous maritime end-users what can be achieved when H2 is used at scale.
Partners
COVID-19 Early Detection for Fisheries and Maritime
Timeline: 2020-Present
Providing the technology and communications platform to allow the fishing and maritime sector to return to work safely and build a pilot that can be scaled to other sectors and regions. Every summer 10,000 plus people go to work in the Alaska based fisheries through Washington State. How do we support and enable this activity and workforce in a way that is safe and not contributing to the spread of COVID-19, threatening small communities throughout Alaska and hence, the entire fishery itself? How can we monitor and track the health of the workforce who is particularly high risk due to the nature of the work?
Area of Focus
Project Scope
A partnership between Maritime Blue, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and Discovery Health MD (DHM) will build, implement and scale an early detection system to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in this high risk workforce.
- IHME will build a survey, provide data analysis, and dashboard for early detection
- Survey results will inform and support businesses internal data collection needs
- DHM will work with the Fishing and Maritime industry to support operationalization
- Engage in further technology partnership to ensure efficient and safe data transfer to and from vessels
- Scale the solution in concert with other contact tracing efforts to be utilized in other high risk workforce sectors and eventually to whole communities, regions and states.
Benefits
The overall goal for this Program is prevent the spread of COVID-19 as industries are implementing back to work initiatives, while maintaining the health of employees and the communities in which they live or operate. Strategic analyses that utilize the survey and testing data will allow us to look for a potential for resurgence, protect jobs and protect the global food supply chain.
Partners
This project is supported by the Washington State Department of Commerce’s US Economic Development Administration Safe Start grant.
Links
Strategic Engagement
These are collaborative efforts where we are engaged with partners while not taking a leadership role.
Green corridors
Including the Seattle – Alaska green cruise corridor and the Washington – Korea green corridor.
Clean Energy Tax Credit
Along with the WA Department of Commerce Maritime Blue is providing resources for nonprofits that are now eligible for state clean energy tax credits.