Major Levers for Maritime Decarbonisation & Case Studies

Dr RV Ahilan FREng, CEng, FIMarEST, FRINA, FSUT

Chief Energy Transition Officer, ABL Group ASA

Ahilan is a well-known and highly respected technology and business leader with over three decades of industry experience, more than 25 years of which has been at board level, including leadership positions at LOC, DNV GL, GL Garrad Hassan and Noble Denton.

With expertise in hydrodynamics, he has led projects which have set standards and safety factors in jack-up site assessment, mooring systems and marine transportation. He has been an expert witness and technical advisor to lawyers in Norway, UAE and the UK on many technically complex cases related to marine operations, drilling rigs and FPSOs. He is Chairman of the charity Marine Technology Trust which supports industrial placements in the marine industry for UK university students. In addition to this, he is an Advisory Board Member of WavEC Offshore Renewables and was Non-Executive Director of a vertical axis wind turbine company.

Ahilan has also acted as global director of LOC Renewables, having established it as an umbrella brand to consolidate the group’s expertise and portfolio across the marine renewables’ landscape. Under his direction, LOC Renewables rapidly developed its project experience across offshore and floating wind, floating solar, wave and tidal energy.

He holds a BSc (Leeds) and MS (Caltech) in Civil Engineering, a PhD (Cantab) in Engineering Fluid Mechanics, an MBA (Imperial) and is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Dean Goves

Managing Director- Maritime, Longitude

Dean is a qualified naval architect experienced in ship design and engineering. He is a Chartered Engineer, Naval Architect and RINA Member, with over 17 years of experience in the marine sector. Dean is also a member of the RINA Maritime Innovation Committee.

Recently Dean has undertaken and overseen a number of maritime decarbonisation related projects including the development of a hydrogen fuelled ferry, a hydrogen production barge and an electric SOV with the ability to operate fully on battery stored power, with offshore charging and back up methanol-fuelled energy generation.

Stefano Scarpa CEng, MEng, MBA, MRINA, MSNAME

Associate Director – Maritime Decarbonisation, ABL

Stefano is a qualified naval architect with 25 years’ experience in ship design, engineering consulting, project management and marine surveying. He has expert knowledge in ship technology, energy efficiency measures, alternative fuels, and the fast-evolving decarbonisation regulatory international framework.

He has a strong passion and interest in sustainability, decarbonisation, and energy efficiency, and he is a supporting member of the International Windship Association. Stefano serves in the IWSA delegation at the IMO Intersessional Working Group for Green House Gases (ISWG GHG) and Maritime Pollution and Environment Committee (MEPC) keeping current in GHG emission reduction regulations, trends and developments.

Stefano holds an MBA from Warwick Business School and has been growing and managing businesses for the last ten years. Before joining ABL Group, he was the Managing Director of the world’s largest superyacht sailing systems service business