Successful launch event and beginning af a new era
Future Proof shipping launched the first Hydrogen powered Inland Container Ship on May 25, 2023. News over news appeared on the successful launch event, allowing around 390 people on two days to board the H2 Barge 1.
Mark Harbers, the Dutch Minister of Infrastructure & Water Management in the Netherlands attended the event and presented FPS Founder Huib van de Grijspaarde with a special A-Zero (A0) emission label awarded only to zero-emission vessels.
During the label's presentation, Minister Mark Harbers said: 'It's my pleasure to present the very first A-Zero emission label to H2 Barge 1, as it is the first vessel to truly qualify as zero emission.'
It reminds to a miracle when looking back at the story of the FPS Maas as it was called, before the complete transformation with permanent contracts, negotiations, safety barriers, non existing standards and financing from many different sources. Future Proof Shipping purchased the ship in January 2020, and so the journey began; actually, it started before the purchase of the ship.
Congratulations also from ZEM ports NS for FPS for managing this enormous work with all the partners on their way. We're proud to be part of the journey!
Once done the pioneering work, everything becomes more manageable, and so the next retrofit ship is already on its way, with a launch planned in 2023 and a third one in the pipeline. For the next five years, FPS aims to have 10 zero-emission ship projects started. They claim the first one will save around 2000 tons of CO2 annually.
Watch a film about the launch event here: