SCHIFFSTECHNIK | SHIP
SCHIFFSTECHNIK | SHIP TECHNOLOGY Innovative paths for high performance at sea A.I. and innovative technologies for ship design and operation, ship efficiency and fuel savings – the renowned expert conference HIPER 24 (High-Performance Marine Vehicles) took place in Monastery Druebeck. By Hans Payer As last year, the HIPER Conference has taken place in the Harz highland region in Northern Germany, with 31 valuable presentations and more than 50 experts from all around the world attending. The selection of seven of these should give a good overview of what has been discussed this year. As in the previous years HIPER 24 was a very interesting and successful conference. The topics treated were related to ship design and operation, to trim optimisations and fuel savings, mostly resulting in significant reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Trim optimisation techniques, routing optimisation, energy saving devices (ESD) as well as proactive cleaning devices were discussed. Artificial Intelligence played a prominent role in many of the presentations. Lukas Kistner and Kevin Koosup Yum from Hyundai Europe described a digital twin for design and operation in »Multi-component Ship Power Systems«. While conventional ship power trains mainly incorporate propulsion and auxiliary engines, modern designs are more complex, additionally integrating shaft generators, fuel cells, and batteries to enhance energy efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions. Due to the diversity of vessel characteristics, a universally bestperforming design is hardly possible. Instead, different technologies with their particular characteristics and operational limitations are favoured, also requiring specific system control strategies. The authors introduce an earlystage modular energy management approach aimed for operational efficiency and flexibility, which can be used for model-based system design optimization tasks. In their paper, the generalised strategy is tested with various power system configurations. • Case 1 represents the traditional power system made up of a mechanical propulsion system with a main engine and electric power system with gensets. • Case 2 introduces the potential interaction of mechanical shaft and electrical bus bar through a shaft generator. • Case 3 shows an electric propulsion system including electrochemical fuel conversion of solid fuel cells (SOFCs) as principal source for power as well as a genset plus battery system support. • Case 4 finally includes all components under consideration. Such a digital twin can be used for optimisation of a complex design and its operation. Robert Dane of Ocius Technology, Australia, gave a fascinating presentation »Multi-component Ship Power Systems« presented by experts from Hyundai Europe More than 50 international experts gathered at HIPER 2024 about »Sustainably powered autonomous surface vessels« – for which he received HANSA’s »Maritime Innovator Award«, as this is considered to be a significant step in the development of marine technocology. (see right page). Intelligent Drones patrol autonomously as satellites of the sea, a coast or maritime region. The Bluebottle range of USVs (Unmanned Surface Vehicles) are very interesting and innovative and are designed to provide long-term autonomous surveillance and communications for defence, offshore, or oceanographic applications, These vehicles represent a unique combination of technologies making them »doubly autonomous«: intelligence autonomous, as well as energy autonomous. Robert Dane will will provide a more detailed and comprehensive description for a forthcoming HANSA issue, so we can look at other projects at this point in time. Changbae Jin, Yoichi Wakabayashi, Changbae Jin, Nobuyuki Onishi and Yoshihiko Sugimoto of Mitsui O.S.K. Lines and Oshima Shipbuilding have written a report on updates and future plans for the famous »Wind Challenger Project«. In light of IMO’s strategy to reduce total GHG emissions from ships by 50 % by 2050, the telescopic type of hard sail solution for large vessels has been developed by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines and Oshima Shipbuilding through joint research together with research institutions and a classification society. It was successfully installed on the © Hyundai Europe large bulk carrier »Shofu Maru« and has been in operation since 2022. In the meantime, it has completed eight voyages. Now there are plans to install it on various types © Payer 50 HANSA – International Maritime Journal 07 | 2024
SCHIFFSTECHNIK | SHIP TECHNOLOGY HANSA HONOURS FORWARD THINKING EXPERTS Innovator Awards for Robert Dane and Oliwia Galecka It has become a good tradition that HANSA, as media partner of the HIPER Conference, honours special achievements with an award. This year at Druebeck, the focus was again on projects or technical applications that can drive the maritime industry in a unique way. Maritime Innovator Award The »Maritime Innovator Award« goes to Robert Dane from Ocius Technology. He is the successor of Helle Vines Ertsås, Global Category Manager for Hull Skating Solutions at Jotun. In his paper »Sustainably Powered Autonomous Surface Vessels« Robert describes Ocius’ concept of an Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV) design, called Bluebottle. This autonomous Drone of the Sea is powered by solar, wind and wave energy, facilitating, together with back-up batteries, long periods of operation, covering vast areas. The drones are team capable and approved by AMSA, the Australian Maritime Safety Agency, for operating in Australia’s EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) to conduct long-duration autonomous surveillance missions. Ocius is currently deploying Bluebottles for defence, oil & gas and oceanographic missions around Australia. The drones are autonomous not only regarding propulsion – but also »intelligence autonomous« in some decision making, using for example AI for autonomous collision avoidance and team capabilities. The Bluebottle drones could in theory stay at sea indefinitely. They have been tested extensively and shown to be reliable for long services. Young Innovator Award The »Young Innovator Award« goes to Oliwia Galecka, Energy Transition Analyst at Irish shipping company Ardmore Shipping. She succeeds Florian Gerland, co-founder of German startup Larabicus, who won the award last year. In her paper »The Effect of Using Robust Voyage Optimization on a Tanker’s CII«, Oliwia describes a vessel’s Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) as defined by the IMO, as the total mass of CO2 emitted per cargo carrying capacity. Thus, the CII rating of a vessel may be improved by reducing the CO2 emitted by the vessel over a year. There are several ways to achieve this, such as running on low-carbon fuels, installing supplementary wind-assisted propulsion or solar power onboard, or through speed and routing optimization. Generally, most easily attainable is improving the quality of the voyage optimization techniques used, resulting in improved fuel efficiency. Voyage optimization, as described in her paper, is defined by three elements: pre-voyage planning, voyage execution and post-voyage analytics, allowing the voyage to be adequately planned for, effectively conducted and reviewed for future improvements. Oliwia is a remarkable young lady. She studied Naval Architecture in Newcastle. During her studies she got summer training jobs from Ardmore Shipping Services. Therefore she was already somewhat familiar with the company, when she got a job there in Cork, Ireland, after her graduation from Newcastle University. HP © Payer Conference host Volker Bertram with award winner Oliwia Galecka © HANSA HANSA – International Maritime Journal 07 | 2024 51
