Zephyrus Marine has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Mirai Ships, a Japan-based shipyard located in Miyagi prefecture, to build the Zephyrus Zero Carbon Offshore wind service vessel.

The zero-emission Crew Transfer Vessel concept incorporates a modular battery system, permitting batteries to be swapped using modular architecture from Canadian battery supplier Shift. The energy storage system has been approved by ClassNK, and has been tailored to the requirements of Japanese wind and offshore vessels.

The fully electric Mothership will operate as the hotel and charging station with fully electric daughter vessels that will either be stowed on  deck or returned to shore for near-shore operations. These daughter vessels will be lifted off the Mothership and launched into the field. When the charge is low, these CTVs will return to the Mothership to dock at the stern, allowing for the spent batteries (“e-pods”) to be lifted and replaced with fully charged ones within minutes.

The Motorship previously covered the power-as-a-service concept in a feature in January 2023.