Case - April 21, 2021
Decarbonization is the buzzword in shipping today, in line with the International Maritime Organization's goal to reduce annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from ships by at least 50% by 2050 and carbon intensity by 70% by 2050 as compared with 2008. With new requirements addressing GHG emissions expected to enter into force on 1 January 2023, pending adoption at MEPC 76 in June 2021, shipping companies need to start planning for decarbonization now.
Many shipping companies realize the economic and reputation benefits that sustainable operations bring as well. Evaluating, monitoring and reporting their sustainability improvements has become more important than ever. This is where StormGeo’s fleet performance management system, s-Insight Technical (formerly known as ECO Insight) can be an invaluable tool on the road to decarbonization.
There are four strategies readily available in the market to improve GHG rating:
Each tactic may generate a different result based on the formulas of design indices and operational indices, as shown in the diagram below. Whatever the design indices or operational indices, making the nominator smaller and the denominator bigger is the goal.
s-Insight Technical uses an energy management approach to measure and monitor vessel performance and condition. This allows shipping companies to make smart decisions to achieve fuel savings and reduce emissions. The system measures hull and propeller conditions and fuel efficiencies and operation modes of the engines, as well as recording fuel types. StormGeo’s fleet performance center can even customize hundreds of alerts upon request.
Read about how we successfully helped our customers prepare for decarbonization in the following cases.
StormGeo helped this customer monitor hull fouling using a hull performance index. The index takes external factors like wind, wave, swell and water temperature into account which goes beyond ISO 19030 standard. The hull performance index is 100% for a new ship and below 80% for a degraded hull. The lower the value of the hull performance index, the worse the degradation of the hull.
Using the graph below, we found that while the hull was in good condition in November 2019, the index was continuously decreasing. By October 2020, the hull performance index had decreased to 77.1%, which meant the vessel required more than 20% of power or fuel consumption to achieve the same efficiency as new. This provided a strong signal to the shipowner to clean the hull and propeller. The shipowner subsequently conducted an underwater inspection and cleaned the hull on 18 October 2020.
After propeller polishing, the hull performance index improved to 83.8%. The main engine consumption for 90 days in the next sea passage after polishing was 618.4 MT, compared with 661 MT estimated without polishing. A total of 42.6 MT of fuel was thus saved, as shown below. If full hull cleaning had been arranged before departure, as much as 142.7 MT of fuel could have been saved in the same voyage.
As Case #1 shows, the hull performance index is an invaluable tool to determine the best timing of hull cleaning, propeller polishing or dry docking. In addition, it can provide customers strong evidence proving vessel performance when disputes or claims arise.
In Case #2, our customer received a complaint from the charterer about hull fouling. Using the graph below, we found the hull performance index of the vessel improved from 83.7% to 94.9% after hull cleaning in the beginning of April 2020. This showed that the hull was cleaned properly and had been restored back to a good condition.
Graph 3: Hull Performance Index from s-Insight before and after hull cleaning
Graph 4: Weather normalized power at vessel speed showed the data after hull cleaning was very close to the baseline.