Ferry companies have reduced their fuel consumption by investing in digitalisation, automation and monitoring systems
Color Line and Bohai Ferry are the latest ferry operators to have achieved lower fuel consumption and reduced greenhouse gas emissions using Lean Marine’s FuelOpt propulsion automation and monitoring system.
Stena Line and Viking Line have also cut their operating costs through deploying FuelOpt. By September 2020, FuelOpt had been contracted for more than 25 passenger ferries.
This year, FuelOpt was installed on the two largest ropax vessels in the world: Color Line’s Color Fantasy and Color Magic.
Color Line superintendent Karl Wisløff said FuelOpt had a positive impact on operating expenditure with Color Line reporting the lowest weekly consumption ever on Color Magic after the FuelOpt installation.
In 2019, Bohai Ferry installed FuelOpt on ropax Bohai Baozhu to improve operational efficiency. Bohai Ferry saved more than 12% fuel over a one-year period.
Lean Marine also provides these ferry owners its fleet analytics, smart performance management and reporting software.
Brittany Ferries has cut fuel consumption by around 4% through vessel monitoring and analytics. It has deployed Wärtsilä Voyage optimisation tools on ferry Cap Finistere and will install similar equipment on other ships in the fleet.
Within six months of trim and speed energy management and optimisation, Brittany Ferries recorded a reduction in bunkers equal to about 2,600 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
Wärtsila Voyage head of sales, key account solutions, Andrew Rayner told Riviera Maritime Media a similar optimisation system is on Brittany Ferries’ vessel Pont Aven and another will be installed on Galicia in October. “We install data collection platforms and screens for the crew to visualise information.”
“This collects data from navigation, engineroom machinery and our proprietary sensors for trim,” he explained. “We build a mathematics model that is live on board for crew to follow for fuel savings.”
Wärtsilä speed and trim solutions have also been ordered for Brittany Ferries’ vessels Honfleur, Mont St. Michel and Armorique.
Meanwhile, Nautical Control Solutions has introduced new features to its Fueltrax electronic fuel monitoring system. It has released FuelNet Gen-6 on its cloud-based portal to provide consumption tracking reports.
Shipowners such as Swiftbulk use Fueltrax and FuelNet to monitor fuel consumption and optimise usage across their fleets. New features to FuelNet include new dashboards for visualising fleet performance, and more interactive charts, graphs, plots and map views to expose fuel waste and eradicate pilferage attempts.
Nautical Control Solutions has also significantly improved system performance and processing in FuelNet.
FuelTrax director of business development Victoria Cantu said, “Eliminating fuel waste remains the key for reducing fleet operating costs, maintaining vessel uptime, and reaching zero-emissions targets for our users.”
FuelOpt controls vessel propulsion and optimised power, based on set commands for power, speed, fuel consumption or a combination of these.
This removes costly variations in speed and power caused by human operational factors, allowing the vessel to achieve optimal fuel consumption at every given point throughout a voyage.
For vessels with controllable pitch propellers, FuelOpt acts as a dynamic tuning system for the propulsion machinery to assure that the engine and propeller operate at optimal conditions.
Other ship operators and owners have explained how they reduce operating costs during Riviera’s Vessel Optimisation Webinar Week that was held 7-10 September. Use this link to view these webinars in the library
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