STRATEGIES
THROTTLE UP TO SAVE FUEL? The forecast is looking ominous, 7 meters swells are predicted in the mid Atlantic with strong head winds following the storm. What do you do? Full throttle and try to power though the bad weather? Reroute around the storm? Slow down and wait for the storm to pass? These are just some of the decisions a captain will have to make. Not to mention traversing through an Emission Control Area (ECA) where captains might be burning fuel at USD$1,000 per tonne. How do you choose the right option, the optimum route, the route that saves the most fuel? The adoption of slow steaming across the maritime industry has seen ship speeds slowing down to save fuel. Slow steaming saves on fuel consumption and cost while also releasing fewer greenhouse gas emissions as emissions are proportional to fuel consumption. The commercial shipping industry is catching onto the benefits and many companies are now enjoying the rewards of more sustainable emissions through monetary savings. But is this really the best way to save fuel? Applied Weather Technology (AWT) have suggested that variable speed optimisation can actually help save fuel. Does this mean slow steaming is coming to an end? Fathom met up with Applied Weather Technology’s George Schlinkert, Vice President of Route Advisory Services to find out about a new product, AWT SmartSpeed, which takes into account both the optimum route and optimum speed for each segment of a voyage through daily updates. “There has never been a system which takes into account historical weather, current data and relates both to the speed of the ship. One speed for a route is not going to be the most cost-effective” George Schlinkert stated. “ S m a r t S p e e d co m b i n e s ve s s e l specifications and voyage details with AWT’s up-to-date weather and oceanographic information to calculate optimum speed settings across an entire voyage. This allows operators and captains to improve the performance
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of their vessels and ultimately burn less fuel.” Take a standard route from Rotterdam to New Orleans (Figure 1) that encounters ECAs. For the first day or so, the ship’s captain may take it slowly while consuming low sulphur fuel at USD $1,000 per tonne while within the ECA. The captain then hears of a storm directly en route which he wants to outrun and will require him to speed up to 17 knots when burning high sulphur fuel outside the ECA (red line). There may still be the tail of the storm which the captain has to navigate but by reducing the speed down to 15 knots, he is are able to burn less fuel, knowing that he can make up time when further into the journey. By altering both the speed and route of a voyage depending on what weather or compliance regulations the ship is going to encounter, it is possible for ships to save money on fuel. “Trying to avoid storms using route optimisation doesn’t provide a final solution. Instead, by running both speed optimisation and route optimisation side by side it can improve fuel consumption.” “The new suite will allow the user to set the appropriate speed setting during various segments of a voyage that will allow for minimal consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, thereby achieving SEEMP objectives.” George Schlinkert emphasised that
users will be provided with tools to achieve on-time arrival, proactively minimise fuel costs and actively monitor daily fuel consumption. “We have been speaking to a lot of our clients and the major concern is fuel. This is our way to help them proactively make savings. Instead of owners saying after the voyage ‘what when wrong, why am I not making money on a voyage’, we are helping them make money instead of losing it.” “Because AWT routes 50,000 ship voyages per year, we have access to millions of speed and consumption records in all types of weather. This gives us a unique ability to calculate a vessel’s consumption and the effects of weather,`” commented George Schlinkert. “To provide variable speed and variable route optimisation has been the goal of ship routing for years, but only today, with massive computing power, is this made possible.” “Most people think of weather routing as just recommendations and forecast information. But we are doing a lot of consultation because ship operators need to know a little bit more than just the ETA of the ship. For example why is the captain deviating, why is there a delay?” “We are really holding the hand of the ship operator to help them make smart decisions commercially.”
Figure 1. Weather routing from Rotterdam to New Orleans.
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ISSUE 03. 2014