EMEA News
Efficiency Monitoring Helped Reduce Fuel Use Up to 4.5%
UK engine services company Royston Limited (Royston) says one of the early adopters of its efficiency monitoring system has achieved significant savings and expanded the use of the system in its fleet, according to a report in industry news site The Motorship.
Royston's enginei system combines continuous fuel consumption measurements with data on engine power output and GPS readings, and can calculate and compare data between different ships within a fleet.
Ship operator James Fisher Everard began a trial of the system in 2009 and found the enginei system helped reduce fuel consumption of the coastal clean products tanker Shannon Fisher by 4.5 percent under ballast and 3 percent when loaded.
The company then fitted 13 of its tankers with the systems.
"Now the system is up and running on the majority of targeted vessels, using the trend analysis we are able to monitor fuel consumption of the vessel to make comparisons between same class vessels on similar routing to identify potential savings in cost by tuning the power output of the main engine," said David Whitehead, project manager for James Fisher Everard.
"Ship's command was originally trained in the operation of the enginei system and has now become familiar with its operation and the ease of parameter input thus we realise that as time progresses that it will become a useful tool in fine tuning the operation and cost efficiency of the vessels."
Roylston said it is introducing new technical developments including the use of coriolis flow meters to improve the enginei system's performance.
A recent report by European environmental group Transport and Environment (T&E) found that technology like continuous monitoring and fuel flow meters could save large ship owners up to €9 million ($12.2 million) per year.
