Improving Energy Efficiency of Ships through Optimisation of Ship Operations

Increased environmental concerns, resulted in new legislation, and high and volatile fuel prices are today’s driving forces to reduce operational costs and become greener. Reduction of fuel consumption acts as the main contributor towards this. In the context of the given economic pressure and from international law point of view, the amount of energy-savings by vessel fuel should be increased and energy consumption should be reduced as much as possible. From the shipping industry perspective, there exists good practices and technological solutions for energy efficient ship operations. However, opting for the right practice and monitoring it on a timely basis during a voyage are complex challenges that the shipping industry is faced with today. Even if the right mean was selected for a ship’s voyage, fuel savings might not be satisfactory as predicted due to the real-time environmental conditions such as weather and sea state etc. The purpose of this project is to create a mechanism and develop a Decision Support System (DSS), which is to monitor the energy consumption on a real-time basis and to optimise it through a real-time decision support system that will help improve the energy efficiency of ship operations within SEEMP. Therefore, a decision support system will be developed for real-time energy monitoring and making optimal decisions during ship operations. Energy simulation software from the literature will be selected and combined with an optimisation algorithm to form a decision support system to be used on-board vessels as well as onshore for energy efficient ship operations. DSSs for the optimization of energy efficiency on ship operations help decrease the complexity of the situation and in this way the managers’ (the captain of the ship and /or enterprises operating units) awareness can be simultaneously strengthened. The developed DSS is illustrated and exemplified in two scenarios, which helps draw the conclusion of its promising potential in providing a strategic approach when ship operators provide decisions at the operational level considering both the economic and environmental aspects.