Carnival and Solvang use digitalisation to reduce fuel consumption and maintenance, while GTT introduces a new digitalisation suite
Managing power, energy, fuel consumption and emissions from shipping using digitalisation technologies will be vital to the future of the industry.
Shipping companies, operators and managers can reduce emissions in the short term and decarbonise in the long run using digital processes such as real-time fuel monitoring, hull and propulsion performance analysis, fleet efficiency evaluation and voyage analysis.
Decarbonising has been a key focus for Carnival Corp since 2008 when it started installing exhaust gas cleaning systems across its cruise shipping fleet. Carnival vice president of corporate shipbuilding Michael Kaczmarek says more than three quarters of its fleet have installed these systems to strip out sulphur emissions. Carnival is also upgrading its fleet to burn LNG instead of heavy fuel oil, with four cruise ships operating on LNG, and nine under construction.
Mr Kaczmarek says the future is likely to be multi-fuelled and will use digitalisation tools. “Data gathering is critical to understanding what you are doing now,” he says.
“Understanding what changes are being made by the decisions you make is going to help plot your way to a more efficient and more environmentally friendly future.”
Gas carrier owner Solvang uses digitalisation and real-time monitoring to enable predictive maintenance of its power generators and engines. It operates a fleet of 27 vessels, including nine ethane/ethylene carriers, 10 medium and large gas carriers and eight very large gas tankers. On nine of these ships, it uses SKF’s Enlight ProCollect to move away from traditional time-based maintenance.
With SKF’s QuickCollect vibration sensors and ProCollect app, Solvang can monitor a range of onboard rotating equipment. It can identify equipment failures before they happen, reducing unplanned downtime for repairs, improving the service life of equipment and helping to optimise the management of spare parts.
SKF service sales manager Gavin Coull says the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated shipping companies’ investment in digitalisation for condition monitoring. “The ability to perform tasks remotely, digitally with less touch points, has many advantages,” he says.
SKF developed a portfolio of digital tools enabling remote maintenance to support marine operations. Enlight is part of these. It is a unified data hub for predictive maintenance which collects data from sensors and systems for analysis, displaying the information in a dashboard that can be accessed by a chief engineer, superintendent, fleet manager or even by a class surveyor or SKF remote diagnostic expert.
“Continuous online monitoring is becoming more scalable and more valuable every day,” says Mr Coull. SKF has also invested in artificial intelligence and digital technology to generate easily digestible insights on equipment health. When applied to rotating equipment, Mr Coull says such advanced analytics and software can be used to turn “data into decisions and actionable insights” for crew on vessels.
GTT’s ship performance management platform provides data tools for real-time information reporting, auto-logging, visualisation and analytics. Owners gain an overview of voyages, bunkering operations, fuel on board and insight into fleet performance levels.
Within GTT’s Vessel Performance Expert are modules for reducing operating expenditure and emissions, while improving revenue and profits. Its key benefits to owners are real-time overviews, quick insights, fleet analytics, fuel management, voyage analysis, performance evaluation, sustainable shipping and compliance, energy efficiency management, smart reporting, and hull and propeller monitoring.
Information can be viewed online by shore managers via a web portal and on board by crew. Quick insights displays selected key performance indicators (KPIs) using a traffic light system to reflect vessel efficiencies and operations. It will also alert managers if vessel performance moves out of set KPI parameters. Fleet analytics filters data to display information for benchmarking, enabling decision making based on real data.
GTT’s fuel management module tracks fuel consumption, bunkering metrics and onboard inventory. Warnings are issued if there are significant differences between measured and manually reported consumption.
On the platform are charterparty and voyage overviews, listing data for analysis of voyage execution, either after or during the voyage. Data can be compared to a charterparty contract and comparisons can be made of multiple voyages on the same leg.
This leads to voyage analysis on board a vessel. This module provides live recommendations of an optimal range of shaft speed, ship speed and trim throughout the voyage. It delivers smart comparison of the actual vessel route and recommends the best performance and fuel savings.
For further energy efficiency, GTT provides live dashboards showing a real-time overview of machinery operations, providing crew with advice on how to operate more efficiently.
For onshore managers, online web dashboards allow visualisation of vessel operations and identifies aspects that can be improved to improve efficiency. There is insight into overall power plant efficiency to help managers understand the per kWh cost of produced energy on the vessel.
A power production efficiency dashboard displays information on efficient energy storage, such as batteries. This dashboard also shows the combined specific fuel oil consumption for each machinery configuration and highlights potential improvements.
GTT’s performance evaluations cover speed-consumption and speed-power data to create baselines based on statistical fits. This enables performance to be compared at different times for the same vessel or between vessels in the same class. These baselines are the foundation for performance analytics such as fuel tables and retrofit assessment.
Sustainable shipping and compliance modules are also provided, where fuel consumption, ship emissions and vessel operations data is systematically logged for compliance reporting such as European Union’s monitoring, reporting and verification and IMO consumption reporting requirements.
GTT has a smart reporting application that helps to track and improve vessels’ energy management. Data is collated and entered into reports for each voyage and subsection, such as sea routes, canal passage and manoeuvring, for reporting and performance analysis.
A hull and propeller monitoring module can compare auto-logged data and speed-power baselines to provide significant fuel cost savings through better monitoring of hull and propeller performance enabling informed planning of hull cleaning, propeller polishing and drydocking.
Maiden test of electronic bunker delivery notes
Singapore, the world’s largest bunkering hub, conducted a maiden test of live bunker delivery financing using Ascenz’s electronic bunker delivery note (eBDN). This operation was conducted by DBS Bank in partnership with Trafigura Group’s bunkering arm, TFG Marine, container ship operator Ocean Network Express and Ascenz, with support from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore.
In the eBDN, mass flow meters are employed to digitalise bunker deliveries, which enables parties to determine trade data at the point of origin thus mitigating the risk of fraud. Traditional bunkering processes can take days to complete as they rely on manual paperwork. At present, banks depend on physical copies of the BDN.
Riviera Maritime Media’s Vessel Optimisation Webinar Week is being held 9 August 2021 – use this link for more details and to register
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