Page 19: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (September 2024)

MEET THE CTO ANIL RAINA, CTO, RIX age. So when it comes to the application, and especially when it comes to the range, there’s a decision that companies and the technology leaders need to make: if we have chosen hydrogen, how do I store that hydrogen for my application? What we are offering is a hydrogen generation on demand. You don’t have to store that hydrogen, whether it’s high pressure, compressed gas form or a cryogenic form. We are providing a reformer, which takes a methanol water blend and produces hydro- gen on demand and it provides it to the fuel cell stack and then the power electronics for consumption. And that’s a differentiator, especially as we are targeting two megawatt or ? ve megawatt loads. Storing that on a vessel, a vessel that’s already challenged for space, is not easy to do.

What do you consider the sweet spot for this technology in the maritime space?

There is availability of methanol already in ports to fuel, and then the ranges are in the size that I mentioned about two to ? ve megawatts of power where we can build our systems to provide that.

In terms of other applications, I think large yachts has been another application there where we’ve seen some interest be- cause of, again, the wanting to drive clean propulsion and clean solutions in that industry. But we are not that speci? c for where we can ? t, because the technology is agnostic to the application.

We’ve had some conversations about providing, for exam- ple, power to bring the vessel into port or run some hotel load.

There you would have a prime power source for propulsion and then you can use our solution close to and then in port.

How do you see your role and that of your team in

Anil, to start, can you give a ‘by the numbers’ look helping to ease energy and technology transition.

at RIX with insight on the size of the maritime This is a cycle that is repeated in my personal career, and piece? in general across the industry when you look at different seg-

We are about a 200 people in the company, and about half ments. There is a need for the entire value chain, when we of our business today is marine (including new sales and af- talk about wells to wheels (or wells to wake) of an energy termarket support). While we are growing our base business, transition, everybody has to play a role including the fuel pro- we are targeting a double-digit growth for the next three to ducers, to the distribution, upstream distribution to companies ? ve years, and within that growth, our energy and some of our like us that then create the technologies for converting that other businesses will grow, especially energy. fuel into usable energy.

And in that infrastructure, I’ve seen success stories where

In a recent (June 2024) edition of Maritime Re- the regulators are playing a useful role in driving regulations porter & Engineering News, we wrote brie? y with support, as well as some incentives plus some focused about the RIX M2H2 hydrogen generator. Can targets to achieve. I think in that ecosystem is where energy or you dig a bit deeper into this speci? c unit? any technology adoption has been successful. I talked about

In our quest for decarbonization, the reformer is solving the my days at Caterpillar with diesel engines. I worked through need for energy storage. The common pieces of technology the Parker Aerospace with natural gas transition. We did a lot are the fuel cells and the power electronics to drive propulsion of work in Asia on natural gas for emission reduction. But yes, systems. What we are trying to solve is power density. I come I think you need that entire industry to work together … oth- to RIX with some hydrogen and decarbonization experience in erwise it’s dif? cult for that adoption to happen. Some custom- aerospace and transportation. The conversations have always ers have to take that leap of faith and become early adopters, been how do we choose the right technology for all the pieces? because it is new technology and there’s always something to

One of the big things is (centered on) energy density and stor- learn as we bring new technologies to the market.

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