HomeAURELIA Review: Designing the path to Zero-Emission Vessels

AURELIA Review: Designing the path to Zero-Emission Vessels

December 31, 2025

AURELIA is the kind of partner shipowners call when “green” stops being a concept and starts becoming real engineering, integration, and approvals. If you are planning a zero emission newbuild or a serious retrofit, their lane is turning ambitious targets into a design package that can actually clear class and flag.

AURELIA Design B.V. • Amsterdam office
Kraanspoor 50,
1033 SE Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Website: aureliadesign.nl • Contact: Contact Aurelia
Aurelia Benefits:
AURELIA positions itself as a clean-ship design partner, supporting concept to delivery with ship integration, safety compliance, and class and flag approval. Company site
  • Turning net-zero ambition into a buildable design package: AURELIA’s stated focus is vessel design and retrofits aimed at zero emission shipping, which helps owners move from “idea stage” to a defined configuration with clear integration implications.
  • Reducing integration risk across the full vessel system: Clean propulsion is not a bolt-on. Owners benefit when power, space, weights, safety systems, and operations are treated as one design problem, not separate vendor projects.
  • Keeping compliance and approvals in the loop early: When safety compliance and class and flag approval requirements are considered from the start, owners reduce the risk of late redesign cycles, schedule slips, and unexpected scope growth.
  • Using a test-and-verify mindset for new tech: AURELIA describes a “sailing lab” concept called PENELOPE to derisk green technologies through performance monitoring on a working vessel, which is useful when owners want evidence before fleetwide adoption.
  • Making retrofit choices less expensive to reverse: Owners exploring alternative fuels, wind assist, hybridization, or energy efficiency upgrades benefit from early-stage evaluation that highlights practical constraints, interface points, and likely operational trade-offs.
Notes: Always validate feasibility, approval pathways, and vendor guarantees with your class, flag, yard, and equipment makers before committing to a final specification.
Notable mentions and external references
A few quick external touchpoints that show how AURELIA’s concepts, projects and memberships show up outside its own marketing pages.
  • PENELOPE sailing lab and “Clean Sailing” concept AURELIA site
    AURELIA’s “Clean Sailing” page introduces PENELOPE as a sailing lab platform designed to trial wind, solar and other green technologies in real operating conditions rather than only on paper. Open Clean Sailing .
  • Portfolio of future fuel and wind concepts AURELIA site
    The design and portfolio sections show AURELIA’s wider concept work, including vessels that blend wind assistance, batteries, solar and clean fuels in different configurations for shortsea and coastal trades. View design overview and open the portfolio hub .
  • Hydrogen concept Approval in Principle RINA press note
    A RINA press release outlines an Approval in Principle for a 100 percent hydrogen powered vessel concept developed with AURELIA, summarising the main design choices and risk based approach used for the study. Open the RINA press release (PDF) .
  • Wind propulsion community membership International Windship Association
    The International Windship Association member directory lists AURELIA among its design and technology members, placing the firm within the specialist wind propulsion ecosystem rather than only in generic naval architecture lists. View the IWSA member entry .
  • EU Green Gamma project partner listing Green Gamma
    On the Green Gamma project site AURELIA appears as a design partner, with a short description of its role in developing concept work for more efficient and lower emission vessel solutions. Open the partner page .
  • Trade write up on engineering cooperation AJOT
    A brief item in AJOT notes cooperation between AURELIA and HMC BV on the design and engineering of specialised equipment, giving another small external marker of the firm’s project activity. Read the AJOT item .
This list is intentionally short. It is meant to give readers a fast way to sanity check AURELIA’s role in hydrogen, wind and EU project work, not to act as a full credential pack.
Energy storage footprint planner
Quick planning math for early-stage concept discussions. It estimates how much tank volume and fuel mass you need for a target energy amount, plus a battery estimate using adjustable system assumptions.
Enter your numbers to see estimated volume and mass.
Concept screening Space and weight budget Retrofit feasibility Newbuild layout tradeoffs
Notes: “Footprint” here is energy-only. Real installations require additional volume and weight for tanks, insulation, piping, ventilation, safety distances, cofferdams, BOP equipment, and firefighting arrangements. Use class rules and vendor specs for final engineering.

AURELIA reads like a design-led partner for owners who want to explore decarbonization paths without guessing their way through integration, safety, and approval constraints. The most useful way to use a firm like this is to start with a clear operational profile and a realistic energy budget, then iterate through a few candidate configurations until space, weight, cost, and compliance lines up. From there, your yard, class, flag, and equipment makers can turn the concept into a buildable, contract-ready scope.

We welcome your feedback, suggestions, corrections, and ideas for enhancements. Please click here to get in touch.
By the ShipUniverse Editorial Team — About Us | Contact