Deltamarin concludes participation in CHEK project targeting long-distance shipping decarbonization

Finnish ship design and engineering company Deltamarin has wrapped up its participation in the European Union’s Horizon 2020-funded CHEK project, a joint initiative involving 15 consortium partners focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy use in long-distance shipping.

Project CHEK—which stands for deCarbonising sHipping by Enabling Key technology symbiosis on real vessel concept designs—had set targets to achieve zero-emissions shipping by reconfiguring the ways ships are designed and operated.

This was to be accomplished through the integrated use of low-carbon energy forms and technologies onboard two ‘first-of-their-kind’ vessels: a Kamsarmax bulk carrier and a Meraviglia class cruise ship.

More specifically, these technologies included sail power, hydrogen propulsion, waste heat recovery, battery electric power, hull air lubrication, anti-fouling technology and digital operational improvements. The combination was described as having the potential to cut down greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 99%, achieve at least 50% enery savings, and reduce black carbon emissions by over 95%.

Deltamarin’s role in the project was to create the decarbonization methods for the vessel designs. According to a statement by the company, a future-proof vessel (FPV) design platform was central to the development, as it allowed for a ‘holistic’ evaluation of ship energy and environmental efficiency, as early as during the ship conceptual design phase.

The FPV design platform boasted several digital layers, such as ship volume and a structural layer, a ship operational propulsion power layer and a ship system level energy model. Although the layers are closely interconnected, Deltamarin emphasized that independent analysis could still be performed.

The digital design layers are reportedly an input to the newest addition in Deltamarin’s toolbox: life cycle assessment (LCA). As informed, the design variations studied during ship conceptual design can now be analyzed for their impact on the ship’s lifetime, taking into account upstream energy and material flows as well as the end-of-life stage.

As per Deltamarin, the project goals were met. In addition to the digital modeling, the technologies were reportedly also tested either in-lab or under real-life conditions, such as the scenario where two sails were installed onboard the Kamsarmax-sized bulk carrier.

“Shipping decarbonisation will fundamentally change ship energy systems and requires not only the symbiosis of technical solutions for ships but also strong cooperation between various stakeholders,” Mia Elg, R&D Manager at Deltamarin, highlighted.

“We have enjoyed fantastic teamwork in our “CHEK family”. We have shared data, models and our expertise and this kind of trusting environment is the most important platform for new innovations. It has been my honour and pleasure to work in CHEK!”

To remind, the CHEK consortium was led by the University of Vaasa. The other project partners included Wärtsilä, WMU, Cargill, MSC Cruises, Lloyd’s Register, Silverstream Technologies, Hasytec, Climeon and BAR Technologies.