Shippers Seek Drone Enforcement of ECAs

Small drones could provide a cost-effective monitoring tool

Major shipping lines plan to call for the use of drones to enforce new rules for Emissions Control Areas (ECAs), Bloomberg reports.

The Trident Alliance, a newly formed industry group that includes Maersk Line, Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL), and 10 other companies, sees drones as a more effective enforcement mechanism than occasional inspections of ships at port, said Roger Strevens, global head of environment for WWL.

"With conventional technologies, it's difficult and expensive to determine what a vessel is burning while she is under way," Strevens said.

"A drone with emissions sensors on board can overcome that."

Drones operated by national authorities could find vessels through their location signals and fly over them to determine the fuel they are burning.

Strevens said use of this method would provide a deterrent for ship owners that might otherwise flout the law.

Germany's Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) plans to use land-based emissions sensors on the coast and at ports to check for compliance.

"Drones are still a matter of the future, but we support an initiative taken by Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands that call on the EU to foster the development of emission-monitoring tools such as land-based facilities, airplanes and drones," said Carolin Abromeit, head of shipping at BSH.

The Danish Environmental Protection Agency is spending 1 million krone ($180,000) on a drone project, but Jon Risvig, director of business development for Denmark-based feeder vessel operator Unifeeder AS, said drones alone cannot do enough to enforce the emissions rules.

"Authorities need to come up with a range of enforcement measures, including testing the fuel and looking at companies' invoices of what they are buying compared with what they actually are consuming," he said.