Hydrogen Transportation Applications Report Highlights (Ships) - week 5
Series—Week Five
This is SEP’s fifth post in our weekly series highlighting key insights from our latest report.
Hydrogen and hydrogen derivatives are emerging as viable fuels to decarbonize many transportation sectors. At SEP, our Transport Tracking Database monitors thousands of global announcements for medium- and heavy-duty (MD/HD) trucks, ships, material handling equipment (MHE), buses, rail, aircraft, and SAF.
The global ship fleet has grown significantly over the past 25 years. In 2000, the world fleet had a capacity of 0.8 billion deadweight tonnes (DWT). By 2023, it had grown to 109,000 vessels with a total capacity of 2.4 billion DWT (United Nations, 2024).
With ships operating for 25–30 years, the time to decarbonize the maritime sector is now.
Within our tracking of 352 total announcements from 2023 to 2024, 123 were ship orders and projects involving hydrogen, methanol, and ammonia—representing over 550 vessels (85% of announcements report ship counts). The current database of vehicle orders is available via SEP’s North American Hydrogen Market Model: https://www.saoradh.com/hydrogen
Breakdown by fuel type:
⧫ 62% methanol ships
⧫ 23% hydrogen ships
⧫ 15% ammonia ships
Methanol currently leads in adoption, but ammonia-fueled ships are gaining momentum—a trend echoed in other industry studies.
SEP’s report, Hydrogen Transportation Applications, offers an in-depth analysis of vehicle sales and registration data across global, North American, and U.S. markets—benchmarking these trends against hydrogen vehicle purchases and market developments. Access the full report here: https://www.saoradh.com/marketplace-new
—SEP Hydrogen Chapter 3: Transportation Applications, January 2025
About Saoradh Enterprise Partners
Saoradh Enterprise Partners (SEP) is a cleantech venture capital and research firm based in Boulder, Colorado. SEP partners with innovators, entrepreneurs, and corporations to develop cleantech solutions at the magical intersection of science (what’s possible), finance (what’s bankable), industry (what’s needed), and planet (what matters). Learn more at www.saoradh.com.
Media contact:
Jackson Levin, Business Development & Communications, Hydrogen Data Consortium
+1 (303) 448-2115 (office main number)
+1 (414) 405-3743 (cell)