Fuel & Emission Compliance

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The maritime sector has to propel towards a renewable or an alternative fuel with an aim to reduce the industry’s current impact on the environment.

Marine experts suggest a need for substitute fuels in vessels for two major reasons: to decrease pollutants so as to comply with regulation as well as to reduce the climate change and lessen greenhouse gas emissions.

Global warming and climate change have several ecological impacts such as floods, extreme storms, sea-level rise, and disturbed water systems. Between 2010 and 2017, total global CO2 emissions have increased from 33.1 gigatons to 36.2 gigatons and are projected to increase in the coming years. Unfortunately, CO2 emissions are increasing around the world and the nations that are emitting the highest amounts are not doing enough to reduced emissions.

An alternative can be any other fuel than regular fossil fuels that can be used for operating vessels. The alternative fuels can be liquefied natural gas (LNG), biodiesel, straight vegetable oil, liquid hydrogen, methanol and bio-LNG.

Studies reveal that no such alternative exists currently that can cater to both problems, that is, reduce the environmental impact as well as compliance with current environmental regulations. LNG however is a great option to comply with existing regulations, but it emits greenhouse gases as well. Also, LNG tanks are almost 3-4 times the size of oil tanks thus increasing the cost of a new vessel by up to 30 percent.

With the industry working towards LNG Fuel, Dual fuel engines and design modifications for reducing operational costs, optimizing fuel utilization and regulating emissions is critical to sustainable shipping. Smart Ship’s Digital Platform helps track emissions, any liquid discharge, ensuring SOx | Nox compliance and host of other tracking mechanisms for old as well as new vessels.

Fetching live data from emission system , especially Sulphur Oxide (Sox) , Nitrogen Oxide (Nox), Carbon Dioxide etc. from fuel combustion followed by analytics on these data parameters lead to deeper insights and intelligence on vessel performance and compliance. Smart Ship Remote enables range of data parameters from the “vessel to shore”, helping in achieving regulation compliances as well as business intelligence that assures higher ROI across technical ship management processes.

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Real time situational awareness : Thanks to IIOT & Smart Sensors , data from various machinery is leading the way in solving the information exchange issues between various parties in the maritime ecosystem. To reduce the air pollutant from ship emissions, Exhaust Gas Cleaning (EGC) technologies are being recommended. Marine Exhaust Gas Cleaning systems (often referred to as scrubbers) removes sulphur oxides from ship’s engine and boiler exhaust gases. EGC is divided into SOx scrubbers and NOx, reducing devices.

Commitment for fitment of Scrubbers can be a major CapEx for ship owners. With a large number of existing fleet of many owners, it doesn’t make sense to commit millions of dollars in Scrubber installations. Digital automation is the key in all such cases as the world moves towards low Sulphur regulation. Smart Ship Digital platform enables saving energy with live vessel data from machinery, tracking & monitoring emissions at all point of time to ensure compliance as well as operational efficiency, track Sox | NOx| CO2 continuously in addition to video tracking of any discharge.

Emission data available for specific machinery condition , cargo load, charter party terms, weather impact as well as voyage specifics is analyzed for achieving GHG emission compliance. Research has already proven how digital data from machinery & emissions can induce fuel savings, Co2 reduction from effective route planning & voyage metrics calculation, Eco speeding with help of live performance tracking of the vessel at all point of time.

Tracking & monitoring GHG emissions is a matter of compliance & critical importance , however the benefits of an integrated digital system such as Smart Ship© has far reaching impact on all other aspects of ship management : including Fuel utilization, Machinery Condition monitoring, Vessel Performance advisory and host of value intelligence .