Page 21: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (December 2023)

JUHA KYTÖLÄ, WÄRTSILÄ

As maritime faces transcendent changes in terms of decarbonization and automation, Juha Kytölä, Director of R&D and Engineering, Wärtsilä, discusses how this

Finnish maritime technology powerhouse is investing in the technologies and facilities that will drive the maritime industry for the coming generation, including insights on its unique arrangement for a future fuel engine testbed onboard Wasaline’s MS Aurora Botnia.

By Greg Trauthwein to relocate the activity about two kilometers from the older

To start off, can you give a scope of the Wärt- place, close to the harbor of Vaasa City. It’s a $272 million silä R&D investment?

We invest heavily in research and development, about 4.1% investment which brings us about 60,000 sq. m. space under of our annual turnover. So last year $255 million was used for one roof, serving our research, development, testing and val- idation, as well as the production for producing our engine research and development activities; not only for engines ac- tivity, but the major part of that does go into the engine R&D. products to the markets, both of the marine market but also on the land-based energy markets. It’s a fantastic facility, inaugu- rated in mid-2022, with a lot of modern facilities.

This is a transcendent time in the maritime in- dustry. How do you see it?

The transition taking place in the industry is huge [offering Can you discuss the challenges in manufac- many] challenges, [and also offering many] opportunities. My turing and customer support while you’re 34-year career has always been closely linked to technology planning for the future, a future that still has many questions, while supporting the legacy development, and I have been involved in introducing new fu- els [to market]. We put a lot of focus on introducing lique? ed technology and those that rely on it?

Climate regulation is pushing for continuous improvement, natural gas as a fuel for shipping, which was a very big step fuel ef? ciency, and also the fuels that are being used. Today the [and has made] a big contribution toward decarbonization.

marine industry is using around 300 million tons of fossil fuel

Today ship owners have the will to optimize their opera- tions, not only for economical drivers, but especially for the per year, and there is a great need now to replace that with solu- environment. These are fantastic times for people in research tions which are not causing climate impact. One of those fuels and development; it’s motivating for our people, working to we are developing to be used for marine is methanol. Metha- nol is a good fuel. It can be produced from bio sources or also contribute to decarbonization in a global business.

from synthetic basis. So using hydrogen and capturing CO2 or

Wärtsilä has a relatively new sustainable carbon. Today there is production of methanol already in the technology hub in Vaasa, Finland. Can you tell world. If we count in the global production, that’s around 90 us about the new facility; speci? cally, what million tons per year, but that is used by other industries, too. So does it add to Wartsila’s overall capability in at the same time we develop the technologies for using metha- helping to create and deliver decarbonization nol, we need to ? nd ways to ramp up the production volumes for these alternative fuels, where methanol is one candidate.

technologies in the maritime sector?

We indeed have made great investment within Wärtsilä for developing the facilities and the infrastructure so that we can There are still so many unsettled questions on make steps forward in developing new products and solutions. the fuel and technology transition we’re un-

Here in Finland, in Vaasa, we have a long industrial heritage dergoing now, so it might seem a bit prema- with more than 100 years operations on the same site, which ture but ‘what’s next?’

It’s a great question about the longer-term future, what’s consists of older and modern facilities. Wärtsilä made a bold decision a few years ago to completely build new facilities, coming and where’s our focus. When we started [the path to- www.marinelink.com 21

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