Newlight injects hydrogen to make cargo ships more efficient

San Francisco Bay Area startup Newlight has developed a hydrogen-injection system for cargo ships, designed as a retrofit that can be installed in less than two weeks without needing a dry dock. The system uses compressed hydrogen fuel to boost efficiency, cutting fuel use and emissions by more than 20% and saving some vessels as much as $500,000 in annual costs, according to the startup. “Instead of getting power, we actually say to the engine: ‘Hey, reduce the fuel [flow] to the engine, we don’t need as much because we have some nitrous. It’s [just] called hydrogen,’” co-founder Evyatar Cohen told TechCrunch.

Newlight does this by constantly monitoring a diesel engine and finding optimal moments, down to the millisecond, to inject hydrogen fuel, measuring exhaust temperature, combustion pressure, and air intake pressure, and adjusting hydrogen flow every time a piston moves inside the engine’s cylinders. The startup says the hybrid system has completed its first long-range commercial voyage: an 8,500-nautical-mile trip from Singapore to Ghana aboard a 650-foot-long Lomar Shipping bulk carrier, during which the system reduced fuel consumption by 24% and carbon dioxide emissions by 28%. Co-founder and CEO Haran Cohen Hillel called the month-long voyage “an emotional moment,” saying the team spent much of it monitoring the system, the engine’s behavior, and its performance.

The pitch, combined with projections and the co-founders’ years in the Israeli Navy, has helped the duo secure a $9 million seed round, with investment from lomarlabs (the venture arm of Lomar Shipping), BIRD Energy (a joint venture between the U.S. Department of Energy and the Israel Ministry of Energy), deep tech funds Undeterred Capital and CiRi Ventures, and Fusion VC, an accelerator for Israeli startups in the U.S. Newlight says it has signed agreements to put its hydrogen-injection system on 12 vessels across multiple companies, with broader fleet rollouts planned for next year.

Other companies are also working to cut cargo-ship emissions through fuel injection, including with ammonia or methanol, but Newlight argues its hydrogen setup is leaner and requires fewer changes to the diesel engines typically used on cargo ships. The co-founders see opportunities beyond shipping too, including in transportation and data centers, though they say they plan to stay focused on the sea for now before trying to expand.

Why it matters

If Newlight’s retrofit holds up across a wider fleet, it offers shipping operators a comparatively cheap and fast way to cut fuel costs and emissions without waiting for the industry’s slower shift to ammonia- or methanol-powered vessels.