Kongsberg Maritime has launched EcoAdvisor, a vessel monitoring and decision support system for a range of vessel operations
The software is the result of a research project conducted between Kongsberg, DOF Subsea, Sintef, NORCE and Innovation Norway, with the aim of developing technologies to monitor and reduce greenhouse gas emissions during vessel operations.
EcoAdvisor monitors a vessel’s operation and environment, including power generation, propulsion, environmental forces and control system dynamics.
According to Kongsberg, the decision support tool creates an overview of the factors affecting a vessel’s carbon footprint such as multiple engines running at low utilisation, load variations and large power fluctuations due to mission equipment and thrusters.
EcoAdvisor collects and analyses real-time data from systems on board including dynamic positioning, integrated automation systems, navigation and power management systems.
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.
Operational advice based on this analysis is provided to the vessel’s captain, DP operator and chief engineer as to what machinery can be stopped to run the vessel more efficiently and sustainably. The advice is dynamic and revised according to factors such as wind, wave and current or DP system.
EcoAdvisor’s recommendations are revised accordingly and all advice is backed up by a system overview indicating why these changes are desirable, how any potential steps will alter the balance between efficiency, the redundancy margin the real-time effect of the measures.
The system includes a voyage energy calculator feature for transit operation to help operators 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.
Further, Kongsberg said EcoAdvisor’s history log and reporting functions can be used to determine a ship’s EEXI.
DOF Subsea is currently running pilot schemes on two vessels (Skandi Vega & Skandi Africa) and senior vice president technology and integrated solutions Arnstein Kløvrud said,
“We see there is potential for both savings and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and if the result from the pilot vessels is as expected, we anticipate this will be installed on a larger part of our fleet.”
