DE Klop wins Scale Innovation Award for CYGNUS 500 CSD

DE Klop B.V. from Sliedrecht has won the Scale Innovation Award 2025 for the CYGNUS 500 – a fully electrically powered, standardized, and demountable cutter suction dredger (CSD).

Commenting the latest news, Arnold den Boon, CEO of DE Klop B.V., said: “This award is a fantastic recognition of the hard work and innovative strength of our team. The CYGNUS 500 demonstrates that emission-free dredging is not just a vision for the future but a reality today.”

“We believe in sustainable shipbuilding and will continue to invest in technological advancements to further green the industry. With the Cygnus, we also prove that it is possible to bring a fully Dutch product to the market in a highly competitive way.”

The Scale Innovation Award 2025 is a regional prize that promotes innovation in the Drechtsteden region, providing companies and organizations with a platform to showcase their innovative products, services, processes, or business models.

The award ceremony took place on Monday, March 10, 2025, at the Duurzaamheidsfabriek in Dordrecht.

The innovation concerns the CYGNUS 500, a fully electrically powered, standardized, and demountable cutter suction dredger built for stock. This means that the final end-user is not yet known at the time of design and construction, DE Klop said.

The cutter suction dredger is designed for emission-free dredging of various soil types, such as silt, sand, and gravel.

Also, the energy supply is flexible and can be sourced from the electricity grid or an external power generator, such as a fuel cell generator or a generator set running on methanol, LNG, or diesel. This allows the dredger to be easily adapted to the available fuels and technologies in its area of operation.

The CSD is the only standardized dredger built for stock and fully electric.

Since all onboard systems are electrically powered and the energy supply is decoupled from the users, the dredger can utilize various energy sources. This enables immediate emission-free dredging via connection to the electricity grid.

Furthermore, the dredger is readily adaptable to alternative fuels such as hydrogen, methanol, LNG, or diesel, supplied via an external power generator. The design focuses entirely on efficiency and sustainability.

The dredger is fully electric and contains no hydraulic systems.

Thanks to the application of an underwater pump, dredging can be performed at high densities, resulting in lower energy consumption per cubic meter of material, the company said.

In addition to the electric pump drive, all other essential components, such as the cutter drive, winches, and spud hoist systems, are fully electric. Until now, these systems on cutter suction dredgers of this size have always been hydraulically operated.

The pump features a welded outer structure, allowing the wear-resistant and costly cast internal components to be maximally utilized without compromising safety.

To increase productivity, a spud carriage system is integrated as standard, the company said.

With the use of frequency drives, the pump and other electrical consumers can be precisely controlled, further optimizing energy consumption per dredged cubic meter.

The new cutter suction dredger will initially be deployed in Europe, the U.S., Australia, and specific sectors such as (wet) mining.

In these regions and industries, demand for lower emissions is high, and electrical infrastructure is already more developed.

Additionally, alternative fuels such as hydrogen, methanol, and LNG are increasingly available, facilitating the transition to emission-free dredging.

In the long term, electric propulsion will become the global standard. As electrical infrastructure and the availability of alternative fuels improve, demand for emission-free operations will continue to grow, DE Klop concluded.