MSC Cruises, the Geneva based cruise line, said it has taken delivery of MSC Grandiosa from Chantiers de l’Atlantique in France, while first steel was cut for MSC Europa earlier today.

Earlier in the morning a second event took place with the traditional cutting of the first steel and naming of the first World Class ship, MSC Europa, by MSC Cruises’ Executive Chairman, Pierfrancesco Vago.

MSC Europa is the first of five liquified natural gas (LNG)-powered cruise ships on order and the first LNG ship to be built in France.  The two events marked another important step forward in MSC Cruises’ long-term commitment to environmental stewardship both at sea as well as ashore.

In conjunction with the cutting of the first steel ceremony of MSC Europa, MSC Cruises and Chantiers de l'Atlantique unveiled today a groundbreaking R&D project named PACBOAT that focuses on the integration of a new fuel cell technology demonstrator onboard the LNG-powered MSC Cruises ship.

This demonstrator will produce electricity and heat using LNG. The announcement was marked by the signing of the consortium agreement between the various partners involved.

The integration of a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) technology onboard a cruise ship is a world first.

This technology operates at very high temperature (~750° C) and is more efficient for high-power marine like applications than the low-temperature Hydrogen-based Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) solutions, used for instance in the automotive sector.

The SOFC technology offers a very good electrical efficiency up to 60%, and as the heat produced can be self-consumed on board, its total efficiency - heat and electricity – can be much higher, resulting in a direct reduction of energy consumption and therefore of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.