Startup Newlight raised $9 million in a seed funding round, alongside the completion of a long-duration test of its system, which injects hydrogen into diesel engines used on cargo ships. The company says the system reduced fuel consumption by 24% and carbon dioxide emissions by 28% during an 8,500-nautical-mile voyage from Singapore to Ghana.
The company, whose team is based primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area, developed the system as a solution that can be installed on existing ships without taking them into dry dock. According to Newlight, installation can be completed in less than two weeks, while the system could generate annual savings of up to $500,000 for some ships.
How does the system work?
Hydrogen does not add extra power to the engine in the traditional sense. Instead, Newlight uses it to help the engine reduce the amount of diesel fuel required to achieve the same performance. The system continuously monitors the engine and then precisely identifies the appropriate injection moments, with accuracy down to fractions of a millisecond.
The monitoring process includes exhaust temperature, combustion pressure, and intake-air pressure. The system also increases or reduces hydrogen flow in sync with the movement of the pistons inside the engine cylinders, with the aim of controlling combustion while the ship is operating.
Test on a commercial vessel
Newlight installed its technology on a 650-foot bulk carrier operated by Lomar Shipping. The company describes the month-long voyage as the first long-distance commercial voyage for its system, as it was operated under actual maritime conditions rather than being limited to laboratory testing.
The fuel- and emissions-reduction results are based on data announced by Newlight itself, and the source did not provide details about the measurement methodology or an independent baseline for comparison. Therefore, the figures represent an initial indication of the system’s performance, not a final judgment of its capabilities across different types of ships and engines.
Funding and expected expansion
Participants in the investment round included Lomar Shipping’s investment arm, known as lomarlabs; BIRD Energy, a partnership between the U.S. Department of Energy and Israel’s Ministry of Energy; deep-tech funds Undeterred Capital and CiRi Ventures; and Fusion VC, an accelerator that supports Israeli startups in the United States.
Newlight says it has signed agreements to install the system on 12 ships operated by multiple companies, with plans to expand deployment across larger fleets during the coming year. The source did not mention details of the contracts or the timeline for each installation.
Why does this news matter?
The significance of the development lies in its targeting of ships powered by diesel engines through a retrofit solution, rather than replacing the entire propulsion system. This could reduce the modernization barrier for fleet operators if the results are confirmed on a broader scale. At the same time, scalability, the availability of compressed hydrogen, and the system’s operating cost and safety remain open questions that cannot be resolved by a single test voyage.
Other companies are working on using fuel-injection methods to reduce emissions, including solutions based on ammonia or methanol. Newlight believes its system requires fewer changes to existing diesel engines, but it did not provide an independent numerical comparison with these alternatives in the material. The company’s two founders said the current focus will remain on the shipping sector, although they see future opportunities in transportation, data centers, and railways.