Projects

BOSS Level – Intelligent Energy Management for Vessels

Realise FOAK Concepts

An Innovate UK funded initiative aimed at advancing maritime decarbonisation. Investigating AI-based analytics and on-board sensor networks to optimise battery performance.

Connecting vessels to a smarter energy future

As shipping moves toward electrification, the challenge isn’t just new technology, it’s also how to manage it.

Batteries, onboard systems, port infrastructure – these all need to work together in real time. Otherwise, efficiency drops, costs rise, and risk increases.

Through the BOSS LEVEL project, Houlder helped explore a smarter way forward.

Working as part of an Innovate UK-backed consortium, we focused on how next-generation vessels can operate more intelligently - particularly those powered by battery energy storage systems.

The approach combined onboard sensors, real-time data and advanced modelling to give operators a clear, live view of vessel performance. Not just what’s happening in the moment, but also what’s likely to happen next.

This opens up a new level of control.

Energy use can be optimised dynamically. Battery health can be monitored and protected over time. And vessels can communicate more effectively with ports, aligning energy demand, arrival times and turnaround requirements.

Houlder’s role was to ensure these ideas worked in practice - shaping system design, mapping regulatory requirements and grounding the concept in a real-world vessel case study.

The result?

A clear blueprint for how digital, connected systems can make vessels cleaner, safer and more efficient - across ferries, offshore support vessels and harbour operations.

The future of low-carbon shipping isn’t just about new power sources. It’s about making every part of the system work together intelligently, seamlessly, and at scale.

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