An integrated approach needs to be taken by tug owners and port operators when choosing how to cut emissions, delegates were told during Riviera Maritime Media’s Tug operators’ future fuel of choice webinar
This event was held 9 June in association with premier partner Uzmar and sponsored by Navtek Naval Technologies, during Riviera’s TUGTECHNOLOGY Webinar Week.
Boluda Towage Europe fleet manager Stijn van Beneden provided a tug owner’s perspective on future fuel and power options.
He said there were multiple factors affecting owners’ selection of green solutions for tugs, including international, regional and local regulations and environmental requirements, and the willingness of ports to invest in future fuels.
“The road to decarbonisation is a combined path as we need to comply with environmental regulations per country and port,” said Mr van Beneden. “Tug owners need to be included in future port plans. There needs to be supporting facilities in the port for tugs.”
Mooring facilities, shore power for recharging onboard batteries or reliable and classified alternative fuels would all support tug owners to lower their emissions.
“We will be operating the new technology daily which will have a direct impact on harbour operations and the environment,” he continued. “Port operations and the operating profile of tugs determines the fuel to use in that specific area.”
Whether tug owners build low emissions tugs or retrofit existing vessels with technology, they will need the supporting infrastructure. Some future fuels and electrical power solutions are better suited to newbuildings and others could be implemented when retrofitting existing tugs.
Hydrogen and methanol dual-fuel options are retrofit-friendly, but hydrogen as a single fuel and fully electric options are not, according to Mr van Beneden. All of the options considered would meet environmental requirements for 2030, but not all meet zero-emissions targets in 2050.
“Fully electrical tug technology exists today, and this technology will improve in the future, but it is not for operations in every port,” said Mr van Beneden.
“Biofuel is easy to adopt, but we believe it will become more expensive. Other options are hydrogen, methanol and ammonia.” Another option to consider is hybrid propulsion with batteries and hydrogen or methanol as range extenders.
“We have done test with biofuels, and we are currently studying carbon-free fuels to see how to implement them in our business,” said Mr van Beneden. “We have retrofitted vessels with new technology, with hybrid propulsion and for IMO Tier III compliance.”
But with a global fleet of more than 300 tugs, Boluda Towage will not consider replacing the entire fleet or retrofitting them all. Instead, it will consider mixing hydrogen or methanol into a diesel fuel to combust in existing engines.
Zero-emissions ports
Navtek Naval Technologies general manager Ferhat Acuner explained how electric-powered tugs can contribute to zero-emissions ports.
He provided an update on operating the world’s first fully electric harbour tug, Gisas Power, during his presentation.
This Zeetug30 design zero-emissions electric tugboat has operated for more than 750 days since its introduction in Q1 2020 in Tuzla Bay, Turkey, including 713 days with no stoppages.
It has Corvus-supplied batteries on board and is recharged from a dedicated station at the quayside.
Mr Acuner said Gisas Power has completed 1,981 jobs to date. It has more than 2,500 total motor running hours and total charging of around 492 kWh.
“Its operating expenditure savings are really good, being 50% cheaper on fuel than a tug on marine diesel oil, and total maintenance and repair costs are 79% less,” he said.
A key aspect of this project was deploying a quick-charging station to keep the Zeetug in full operation. This infrastructure is available to charge more electric-powered vessels in a port and enables ports to consider other technologies to reduce emissions and eventually become zero-emissions ports. Navtek has developed the Zeeport concept with no emissions emitted from port facilities.
Mr Acuner said in a Zeeport, power is generated from renewable sources to power electric vehicles in the port. Green fuels would also be stored in port to supply ships.
“Hydrogen could be produced and stored for bunkering future zero-emissions vessels,” he said. “There are charging stations for electrical vehicles in port and electric tugs and cold ironing for cruise ships.”
There would be around 35% renewable power generation availability in this concept port for operational requirements and 48% of the requirements from electric vehicles and tugs.
“The Zeeport project is a fully integrated approach that encapsulates principles of circularity, climate change, water resource management, marine ecology, waste management, air quality and strong stakeholder participation as well as decarbonisation of a port,” said Mr Acuner.
He calculated the extra expenditure needed to convert a traditional port into a Zeeport would be around €32M (US$34M) for renewable resources, grid connections, electric vessels, etc. The return on this investment would be around five years.
“We began with Zeetug and then the infrastructure,” said Mr Acuner, “and now we are trying to realise our Zeeport solution for zero emissions and we continue to study zero-emissions cargo ships.”
