In 2016, a consortium of ship designers, technology suppliers, and maritime engineers set out to design a new feeder vessel that would cut fuel consumption, reduce emissions, and make the world’s feeder fleet more energy efficient. The venture was named the Regional ECOFeeder project. Led by the Danish initiative, Green Ship of the Future, the project members began to look at how existing technologies could be applied to a vessel to reduce emissions. According to Thomas Eefsen, Chief Commercial Officer, Odense Maritime Technology (OMT), a Danish ship design and production engineering company, the idea and vision of this project was to demonstrate the combined effects of all the technologies that are available today to reduce CO2 and fuel consumption.
The consortium claims that integrating a range of technologies on board one vessel could achieve an immediate 30 per cent reduction of CO2 emissions compared with the average feeder fleet. According to Mr Eefsen, “the ambition from the start was not to make a fantasy ship, but to design a vessel that in practical terms would be constructed.” Yet today, this vessel is still just a concept, and due its proposed arrangement and regulatory barriers, it may be several years before the design becomes a real, operational ship. As Mr Eefsen confirms, despite the progress made with the design of the vessel, the consortium is lacking the last steps to finalise it.
How does the Regional ECOFeeder design differ to a standard feeder vessel?
The design of the ECOFeeder is based on an opentop concept, which requires containers to be stowed as close as possible in open cargo holds with cell guides, making loading and unloading of containers very accessible. The design provides the most compact container stowage. To optimise access to the containers, the conventional tall accommodation blocks with the navigation bridge would be replaced by an accommodation and ship control area above the engine room and aft mooring deck, allowing stowage of containers above. According to the consortium, better visibility could be attained by placing the high house on the containership to give accommodation for the crew as well as a lookout for the watchmen on the bridge.
The vessel would have one large control room below the containers. Here, there would be a virtual navigation bridge, the ship’s control room, and the engine control room. The traditional bridge lookout would be replaced by cameras and sensors on the front and aft side of the vessel, meaning that look-out would be managed by the officers on duty in the control room. Placing the control room below the containers in an optimised deck house arrangement would mean fewer stairways, optimising the arrangement of the accommodation. This means container positions would be increased by around 100 TEU.
The ECOFeeder would also feature an increased beam of 32.5m, compared with traditional feeder vessels. A wide beam not only increases container intake but also improves stability, reducing the need for ballast water and thereby increasing the payload for nominal containers. According to Green Ship of the Future, this beam width would enable passage of the Kiel Canal, improving the nominal intake by more than 10 per cent compared with a typical containership of the same length.
Another benefit of the increased beam width would be the additional propulsion power it could generate. Mr Eefsen explains that an increased beam leads to better propulsion. Over the years shipowners and operators have reduced their operating speeds to save fuel and comply with regulation in certain areas, making it even more paramount to obtain maximum propulsion power.
This design would allow for between eighty and one hundred more containers to be carried due to the arrangement of the ship’s components and rooms and increased beam width.
Regulatory hurdles to building the vessel
Despite the proposed efficiency gains from operating a feeder vessel built to these design specifications, there is one problem. The combination of all these rooms into one small lower accommodation block does not fit the current regulatory requirements on navigation and look outs. As required by SOLAS and flag states, lookout by cameras and sensors is not permitted. Mr Eefsen confirms that the companies are still navigating these regulatory hurdles but says that with a push from the industry towards more autonomy and more automation in assisting crews and vessels, there’s a better chance of regulatory bodies approving alternative manning methods to permit the construction of the ECOFeeder vessel.
The Danish Maritime Authority and other authorities in Finland and Norway have begun to reserve areas for testing of technologies, including cameras and sensors to assist with unmanned and autonomous operations, as the industry pushes towards a more autonomous future. Mr Eefsen predicts change will come soon with these sorts of projects going ahead.
“This project is stretching out on what we think we will see in the future. There is ongoing development on smaller vessels, especially in Denmark and Europe in relation to autonomy and autonomous vessels. We are likely to see more autonomy and automation on ships and this vessel will help,” confirms Mr Eefsen.
The CCO is confident that in five years it may be possible to get the design requirements of the ECOFeeder vessel approved. Particularly as the IMO has organised groups looking into these alternative arrangements on board vessels. However, SOLAS conventions typically take more than five years to change and therefore the five-year time scale could be optimistic.
The other potential barrier to uptake of the vessel is that it could be more-costly than a standard feeder ship. Although OMT confirms the consortium hasn’t examined the overall cost savings, the company predicts that it might be in the range of 10-15 per cent higher cost overall for the vessel.However, the efficiency gains and emissions reductions would provide additional benefits over comparable feeder vessels.
Where is the project at now?
Mr Eefsen explains that the consortium of companies working on the ECOFeeder project are still pursuing the technologies to be used on board individually. While they have to wait for regulatory approval to begin building such a vessel, they are working on bringing all the technology providers together, integrating different concepts and ideas to create an efficient vessel. “We are taking all these technologies and seeing what is actually possible and what is the end result.”
According to OMT, the ECOFeeder project demonstrates the opportunities that become available when different companies collaborate and various technologies are brought together. “It is important to have the right constellations of partners that have a desire for having these vessels and that can see the value of the vessels and the need to have the people in the room that know about the technology and can bring it together.”
The ECOFeeder project is funded by the Danish Maritime Fund and is a collaboration between the following companies:
- AAB
- Alfa Laval
- Bureau Veritas
- Corvus Energy
- Danfoss VLT Drivers
- Danish Maritime
- DNV GL
- DTU Mechanical Engineering
- HOK Marineconsult
- Lloyd’s Register
- MAN Diesel & Turbo
- Odense Maritime Technology
- Rolls Royce Marine
- Silverstream Technologies
- VP Solutions
