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North Star invests in digital twins, AI, digitalisation
Offshore support vessel owner North Star is deploying digitalisation on its emergency response and rescue (ERRV) ships and windfarm service vessels to cut emissions and downtime
This Aberdeen, Scotland-headquartered owner sees itself as a frontrunner in decarbonisation through its innovations and investments.
North Star operates the largest UK wholly owned marine fleet including the biggest ERRV fleet on the UK continental shelf and provides essential crew rescue, fire-fighting and emergency response services to more than 50 North Sea installations 24/7, 365 days a year.
North Star and Houlder Ltd completed an indepth independent study to determine the carbon emissions reduction opportunities across its current 41-vessel fleet.
This is part of North Star’s aim to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 while maintaining its fleet and operations, said North Star chief executive Matthew Gordon.
It is investing in digitalisation to monitor emissions and fuel consumption using artificial intelligence (AI) and digital twins and will retrofit onboard equipment for higher efficiency.
North Star has invested in a digital twin and decision support software package, which will be installed on all four of its windfarm service operations vessels (SOVs).
Developed by MO4, this package will be the first of its kind used for the SOV market, said Mr Gordon.
“The digital software package will provide predictive maintenance support to help drive efficiencies across the fleet including lower carbon emissions through reduced fuel use,” he said.
The digital solution gathers data from all four SOVs on influential areas such as weather fronts, workloads, work routes and drop-off schedules.
This information is collated and linked to the spatial model to predict future behaviour. By monitoring the simulated data and harmonising the fleet, the ongoing AI learning will help to increase infield efficiencies further.
North Star will also measure fuel consumption on its ERRVs in real time to improve decision making on operational performance.
“A full range of innovative emissions-reduction technologies and approaches are being considered and assessed for their suitability on each vessel class in North Star’s fleet,” said Mr Gordon.
These range from low-cost interventions to large equipment retrofit projects. The decision on which route to take will be dependent on the asset and technology adoption.
North Star is also considering investing in AI software to help optimise its ERRV fleet to further improve performance and reduce the cost of maintenance programmes.
ERRVs typically operate on a 28-day duty cycle in which they change crew, bunker and load essential supplies in port before travelling to the offshore installation where they remain on standby until a relief vessel takes over and they return to port to repeat the cycle.
These vessels can also operate on the same cycle where they transit between offshore installations to provide standby cover for 24-72 hours at a time before transiting on, spending a higher proportion of their time and fuel during transits.
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