The Innovations

Already 10,326 nautical miles covered by Energy Observer. Having set out from Saint-Malo in June 2017, the first hydrogen vessel around the world has made 33 stopovers and has been to 14 countries, navigating in France and the Mediterranean with no emissions of greenhouse gases or fine particles.

Energy Observer is of course a marine vessel and a media platform, but above all it’s a floating laboratory. The crew has tasked itself to test, over six years and in extreme conditions, an innovative energy architecture, heralding tomorrow’s energy systems.

Francis Joyon, Ellen MacArthur and before them, Mike Birch, winner of the first Route du Rhum and Sir Peter Black, Enza, have put their trust in Nigel Irens to design their record-chasing engines. Energy Observer came off the naval architect’s drawing board in 1983 under the name of Formule TAG.

Imagine vegetable gardens on every balcony and rooftop in every town and city! This is the extraordinary feat of three friends who founded Noocity in 2015, an initiative to bring back agriculture to the heart of Porto, and to all the world’s towns and cities.

The energy performance and environmental results for yachts are catastrophic. But the wheels are turning. Changes based on comfort, a determining factor for luxury yachts, are in the works for cleaner boats.

Energy Observer’s Late Morning Departure on Thursday, August 16 from Saint-Tropez and arrival this Saturday, August 18 in Menorca, in the archipelago of the Balearic Islands of Spain. Sailing worth 250 nautical miles (460 kilometers) where a pressure drop assisted the demonstrator ship during the crossing.

Island territories are the best energy-autonomy laboratories. Cut off from the continental grid, and often only having access to reduced infrastructures, they have to handle the variations in electrical production and demand and adapt to the intermittent availability of renewable energies.

Dominique Ristori, Director-General of Energy for the European Commission, regards Energy Observer as a model for the transition of energy and ecology.

20% of the world’s electricity production is dedicated to lighting, 13% of which is allocated to public lighting. And with the growing urbanisation of society, demand will only continue to grow. The town of Frosinone took the problem very seriously by replacing all of its light bulbs with LED ones.

Ports are often large consumers of fossil energy, even though they are in prime position to benefit from renewable marine energy. Here is a taste of the port of the future imagined by the University of Calabria.

Despite strong potential, the production of renewable energy in the Mediterranean is still lagging far behind the Northern seas. To develop this energy of the future, Maestrale, an international project, is currently assessing the “Middle Sea” in order to develop blue energy: clean energy produced by the sea.

In the Puglia region, 40% of wind turbine power is lost. Energy Observer’s film crew went to see how this shortfall can be turned into hydrogen.