Maersk Supply Service has begun a drive to improve energy efficiency that includes both training and monitoring systems, writes fleet energy efficiency manager Eirini Arvanitaki
Maersk Supply Service has begun a drive to improve energy efficiency that includes both training and monitoring systems, writes fleet energy efficiency manager Eirini Arvanitaki
When I joined Maersk Supply Service a year ago, it became clear that energy efficiency is a game-changer. Not only are we challenged to comply with future international environmental regulations, we are a respected vessel operator with obligations to our customers and the environment. We must be proactive and responsible when it comes to energy efficiency and our 44-vessel fleet.
Maersk Supply Service’s fleet is relatively young but very diverse in age, capabilities and technical characteristics. Ten state-of-the-art newbuildings have entered the fleet in the last couple of years, offering our customers access to some of the most competitive energy technology available. At the same time, most of our fleet was designed and built during a time when engine power trumped energy efficiency concerns.
"While an energy efficiency mindset is critical to our success, we need to measure performance and document our savings using actual operational data"
My priority has been to create a strong energy efficiency culture across the organisation. Saving fuel must be everybody’s responsibility. While an energy efficiency mindset is critical to our success, we need to measure performance and document our savings using actual operational data. For this reason, a new system was developed for entering fuel, energy and other performance-related data on all operations.
The data has been an essential tool to building performance baselines and tangible, common performance indicators. Our crew can evaluate their performance and compare savings with their peers. This has allowed us to target 5% fleet fuel savings in one year across the entire fleet. We can monitor progress constantly and adjust vessel operations where needed.
Teaching the people who operate our vessels how to have an energy efficiency mindset is key. We have recently completed our first energy efficiency training seminar in collaboration with Maersk Training. Every crew member now has a solid plan to achieve our goal of 5% savings. To incentivise crew even more we created a one-year challenge sponsored by our top management that will award the three best vessel performers in the fleet for meeting predefined energy efficiency targets. The offshore energy efficiency challenge has been received with a great deal of enthusiasm from crews.
Our next step is to go digital. We need to automatically collect high-quality data that will advise vessels on how to optimise our operations and be as energy efficient as possible. We are taking the first steps in this direction and have signed an agreement with Wärtsilä to install Eniram energy advisory systems across our fleet.
The system will use high-quality data to optimise our operations and save fuel in real-time. Together with Eniram we are starting with a proof of concept on two new vessels [an anchor handling tug supply vessel and a subsea support vessel] which are already equipped with the required hardware for installation. After initial testing, we plan to roll out the system to the whole fleet.
It would be naive to believe it stops here. The journey has only just started. The way we see it, each and every win for us on energy efficiency is also a win for our planet and our customers.
This article was edited from an article originally published on LinkedIn, reproduced with the author’s permission.
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