Kongsberg Maritime rolls out decision support system for vessel optimisation

Norwegian maritime technology group Kongsberg Maritime (KM) has launched EcoAdvisor, an intelligent and dynamic decision support system for optimising a range of vessel operations.

The system is an outcome of a joint ‘Intelligent Efficiency’ research project between KM, DOF Subsea, Sintef, NORCE and Innovation Norway aimed at developing technologies to monitor and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during vessel operations.

EcoAdvisor monitors the vessel operation and its environment, including power generation, propulsion, environmental forces and control system dynamics.

It is said to enable operators to achieve reductions in fuel, emissions and maintenance costs, without compromising vessel redundancy margins or vessel operational efficiency.

With stricter regulations and a global need for the industry to operate as sustainably as possible, EcoAdvisor provides live advice on how ship owners can reduce their carbon footprint whilst at the same time reducing OPEX, KM said.

The system works by collecting and analysing real-time data from various systems onboard such as dynamic positioning (DP), integrated automation systems (IAS), and navigation and power management systems (PMS).

This data is passed through a non-linear optimisation solver to find the optimal set up of the power plant for the current environmental conditions, considering the demand from various consumers including thrusters, mission equipment and hotel loads. The optimal load reference for engines and state of charge reference for batteries is computed based on their efficiency and power loss.

According to Odd Hagen, VP of Offshore Sales at Kongsberg Maritime, the history log and reporting functions in EcoAdvisor can be used to determine the Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index (EEXI), the Energy Efficiency Operational Indicator (EEOI) and Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) to ensure compliance with the IMO.

EcoAdvisor also includes a Voyage Energy Calculator (VEC) feature for transit operation, which helps the operator to determine the total energy consumption for varying speed profiles including added resistance due to wind, wave and current for selected routes based on the weather forecast.

This allows operators to decide the optimal speed with minimum fuel energy consumption for a specific trip, according to their departure/arrival time requirements.

DOF Subsea currently has ‘Intelligent Efficiency’ pilot schemes running on two of its vessels, Skandi Vega and Skandi Africa, and is expecting positive data from these.

“We see there is potential for both savings and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and if the result from the pilot vessels is as expected, we anticipate that this will be installed on a larger part of our fleet”, Arnstein Kløvrud, SVP of Technology & Integrated Solutions at DOF.

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