It\u2019s easy to look on the accumulating environmental legislation as a burden the shipping industry could well do without. As much as shipping operators understand the need to reduce their carbon footprint by adopting greener practices and cleaner fuels, complying with rafts of strict new standards is an onerous undertaking requiring considerable resources and money. At a time when fuel prices are soaring and the struggling global economy continues to suppress freight rates, these hefty additional demands can hardly be welcome to those trying to keep their businesses afloat.<\/p>\n
But comply they must, and over the years to come legislative requirements will only intensify as the various regions and countries introduce their own measures, and their respective ports set restrictions on permitted sulphur levels and so on. Among the most recent mandates is the IMO\u2019s requirement for operators to develop and work to a Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan (SEEMP). From 1 January 2013, every operator must have a plan, which clearly sets out the measures they will be taking to reduce their impact on the environment.<\/p>\n
Going green – without entering the red
<\/b>Pulling against these pressures is the competitive imperative for shipping companies to keep their costs down, by staying trim. Until now this has involved a relatively straightforward equation of making sure engines perform efficiently, that the best route is chosen based on prevailing conditions, and that fuel is conserved wherever possible.<\/p>\n
By introducing diverging environmental requirements into the mix and the picture becomes altogether more complex. Instead of basing calculations and efficiency best efforts simply on getting from A to B, fleet owners must take into consideration any restricted areas and specific port controls which may have a bearing on the fuel they use and their cost of docking.<\/p>\n
This presents operators with some difficult choices. Do they invest in expensive new engines that can handle multiple fuel types, and absorb the additional cleaning and maintenance involved? Or do they bite the bullet and switch straight to alternate fuels such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) – which costs more, is harder to source, and again requires a new engine?<\/p>\n
Such measures might keep governments and regulators appeased, but they will do nothing to reduce a fleet\u2019s costs. What\u2019s more, if other operators aren\u2019t rushing to conform, being an environmental pioneer could cost a company competitively by forcing them to put their prices up.<\/p>\n
Another option is to hold out until \u2018recommendations\u2019 become law – continuing to use traditional fuel until this is categorically prohibited.<\/p>\n
Taking back control<\/b>
A far better option is to take greater control over the way fleets and individual vessels are managed, enabling crews to optimise their performance and efficiency according to the particular conditions they find themselves in at any given time. This is a strategy Eniram\u2019s customers have adopted in their attempts to run a tighter ship.<\/p>\n
These operators have turned the necessity to be more environmentally responsible into a competitive advantage, by looking for broader benefits as they strive to reduce fuel wastage and conserve energy during each passage.<\/p>\n
Eniram allows them to do this by capturing real-time data about a vessel\u2019s performance against a number of indicators – most notably trim, speed and fuel efficiency. These, and many other readings, are measured in the context of the prevailing weather and sea conditions and also, crucially, against vast reams of historic data Eniram has collected over recent years. This vast data store has been compiled from 700 million signals a day produced during thousands of ocean-going hours on 140 different vessels, allowing operators to benchmark their efficiency against the average or peak performance of other fleets, anonymised of course. Where performance isn\u2019t as it should be, Eniram\u2019s easy-to-use software highlights the adjustments that should be made to its instruments, speed and fuel use to hone efficiency.<\/p>\n
Savings of 5% and rising<\/b>
The results are quite astonishing. Even where the focus is solely on trim optimisation, operators using Eniram\u2019s software are reporting over 2% annual saving on fuel costs on average across an equipped fleet. If they add speed optimisation and other capabilities, this figure rises to 5% or higher. With increasing legislative changes and as shipping companies start to adopt more expensive environmentally-friendly fuels, the savings could double from $500,000 up to $1 million a year.<\/p>\n
The ability to dynamically optimise speed during a voyage, based on real-time data compared against known benchmarks, also gives operators more control over port arrival times. In particular, it reduces the need for \u2018buffers\u2019, making just-in-time arrivals a viable proposition. Eniram\u2019s comprehensive data shows that poor efficiency on the approach to port can add up to 20% to the cost of fuel on any given passage. Across an entire fleet over a year, this adds up to a staggering cost burden that could be all but eliminated if operators and crews were furnished with the right information \u2013 and in time to act on it.<\/p>\n
Rapid ROI<\/b>
There are a number of persuasive benefits of going down the Eniram route \u2013 ie of using real-time performance analysis \u2013 as a shortcut to greater energy efficiency and associated cost savings. One is the speed of implementation, which is helped by the fact that the technology is designed to integrate and draw data from instruments already installed on ships \u2013 for example, from existing navigation and automation systems. Sensors are added to track propulsion and movement, but this doesn\u2019t take long and carries only a modest incremental cost helped by the fact that the Eniram technology is already designed to integrate and draw data from instruments. The upshot is that Eniram customers can expect to experience the benefits within as short a timeframe as 30-90 days from the start of the project.<\/p>\n
By contrast, it could take an operator anything between one and five years to design a more fuel-efficient vessel, or make structural modifications to an existing vessel\u2013 both being sizeable and expensive jobs that require dry docking and are very difficult to schedule.<\/p>\n
Crucially, managing a vessel\u2019s performance and fuel efficiency more intelligently ensures not only rapid compliance with environmental targets by making operators fulfil their required SEEMP plan, but also delivers tangible, significant savings within the same calendar year, which has allowed customers to finance the investment directly from their fuel budget.<\/p>\n
Having it both ways<\/b>
Where companies are genuinely struggling to balance their environmental sustainability obligations alongside the many other ominous business challenges that have beset the shipping industry over the last three to four years, real-time data analytics offers a positive way forward. It means operators no longer have to choose between doing the right thing for the planet and doing what\u2019s best for their business; rather, they can deliver against both objectives.<\/p>\n
It is likely to be decades before the various authorities the world over agree on a consistent global standard for environmental sustainability in the maritime industry. Until then, fleet managers need to find their own way to minimise the pain of compliance by offsetting this against the opportunities to hone operational efficiency. It\u2019s a strategy that is working well for Eniram\u2019s substantial and rapidly growing client base, and the results speak for themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Unforgiving environmental targets have compounded already difficult market conditions to stretch shipping operators to breaking point, but there is a way to tackle both challenges and save money, says Henrik Dahl, co-founder and CTO of Finnish shipping data analytics specialist Eniram.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2460,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-2459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-projects-initiatives-greenport"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2459"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=2459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}