Norwegian vessel owner Rem Offshore says owners should ‘design vessels around batteries’ rather than just ‘add them’ to vessels if they want to operate without emissions
Rem Offshore chief commercial officer Ronny Pål Kvalsvik told the 2024 Annual Offshore Wind Journal Conference that it is the company’s firm belief that by far the best way to decarbonise offshore wind vessels is to design vessels around batteries, rather than use alternative fuels.
The company is making a vessel available for trials with an offshore charging system later in Q1 2024 and sees batteries as the quickest route to zero-emissions operations by ships such as commissioning service operation vessels (CSOVs).
Rem Offshore is part of the Ocean Charger project funded by Norway’s Green Platform Initiative and will assign the CSOV Rem Power to offshore charging trials at the Zefyros offshore wind turbine in Norway in March.
The company believes service operation vessel SOV segment is particularly well-suited for 100% battery power operations if offshore charging can be made available.
Mr Kvalsvik told the conference Rem Offshore has already adopted ‘low hanging fruit’ to reduce the fuel consumption and emissions of its CSOVs. It already has three CSOVs in service and a fourth is under construction.
The low hanging fruit adopted by Rem Offshore include closed bus ties with spinning reserve, greater use of digitalisation, and the use biogas/biodiesel if it is available and charterers are happy to pay for it.
It has also already adopted some ‘higher hanging fruit,’ such as greater use of electrification, including regeneration, more efficient propeller solutions, and greater use of digitalisation and decision support systems.
But rather than follow some owners down the route of alternative fuels, such as methanol and hydrogen, Rem Offshore believes batteries are by the far the best route to further decarbonisation and zero-emissions operation.
“The next step is definitely to go electric,” said Mr Kvalsvik. “By this I mean bigger batteries and offshore charging,” he told delegates. He described methanol and hydrogen as “immature technologies” with uncertain availability.
“Our focus is to design power management systems around batteries, utilising batteries as much and as efficiently as possible,” he explained. He highlighted battery modes of operation including providing a spinning reserve, peak shaving, boost mode and regeneration mode.
“This, together with efficient propulsion units, regeneration of power and digitalization/decision support tools has proved to reduce fuel consumption significantly,” he said, noting Rem Offshore is a key player in the Ocean Charger project in which companies are pursuing the development of an offshore charging system for batteries like those on its CSOVs.
“Batteries are the fastest route to zero emissions,” said Mr Kvalsvik. “You cannot trade worldwide with methanol or hydrogen. The approach we are pursuing now is designing the system around the batteries, rather than just adding batteries to an existing system. The next step to zero emissions is bigger battery packs and onshore and offshore charging systems.
“For our CSOVs doing work or transiting to and from an offshore installation we believe batteries as the main energy carrier is the most energy-efficient and fastest route to zero emissions,” he said. He also noted the same solution was the quickest route to zero-emissions operation for the platform supply vessels the company operates in the offshore oil and gas market.
“For other offshore vessels, we are looking into dual-fuel methanol gensets and battery power,” he concluded. “Hydrogen and ammonia are still immature and not commercially available.”
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