Flexible Clean Propulsion Technologies

The Flexible Clean Propulsion Technologies consortium comprises 17 pressure-tested partners with complementary expertise, methods and resources, and sharing a budget of 18 million euros. It is uniquely positioned to overcome the challenges on route to zero-emission marine and off-road transport. Our goal is to establish an economically stable, zero-emission future for the Finnish powertrain industry, departing boldly from locally-driven, single-fuel agendas. We acknowledge that effective decarbonisation means embracing all new zero-carbon fuel options, like hydrogen and ammonia, alongside more mature low-carbon choices such as methane, methanol and bio-diesels. This level of multi-fuel integration is an unparalleled technological challenge for powertrain development.  

We aim to demonstrate robust powertrains achieving up to 100% reduction in tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions, optimising individual fuel streams according to availability, pricing, combustion efficiency and emissions. We will use fuel-agnostic combustion and aftertreatment, supported by complementary electrification, to accommodate five enabling fuel categories within just two versatile engine platforms. These will handle a wide range of power demands for off-road and marine transport, with minimal hardware adjustments. Fuel-quality adaptive control functions and self-learning capabilities will help address multi-fuel calibration complexity. The Flex-CPT research plan includes 33 innovations, including fuel reforming-based reactivity on demand, adaptive aftertreatment deposit formation control, through to thermal management of hybrid systems exploiting the synergy of fuel storage technology with electrification.