VARD Gets Funding to Develop Digitalized HVAC for Offshore Wind SOVs
Shipbuilder VARD has received 4,95 million Norwegian crowns (currently around $2,66 million) from the Norwegian Research Council to research the possibility of digitalized heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. These systems will contribute to obtain zero-emissons for Service Operation Vessels at offshore wind farms.
"The urgent demand for renewable energy production has resulted in many offshore wind projects. To build and operate offshore wind parks in a sustainable way, there is a significant demand for service operation vessels (SOV) designed with zero-emission requirements," Vard said.
"Ship design is a complex process, scattered throughout many different technical systems, software applications, and information silos. With the increasingly stringent environmental and technical requirements ships are getting even more complex and integrated.
"Understanding how the subsystems interact and influence the overall system behavior is paramount to successful ship design. Since the power generation on future SOVs is expected to be based on battery solutions with offshore charging, it is of crucial importance to reduce the ship's energy usage, including heating, ventilation, and cooling (HVAC) systems," Vard explained.
In this innovation project, ship designers, ship owners - like Norwind Offshore, equipment suppliers, and researchers collaborate to develop innovative HVAC design solutions to support energy-efficient and zero-emission operation of SOVs, VARD said.
"To achieve this, a digital simulation twin of the HVAC system will be developed, based on collection and processing of operational data, prediction of heating and cooling loads, and the modeling and design of innovative HVAC technologies with combined heating and cooling," Vard said.
The HVAC digital twin enables simulations to guide ship designers in identifying the most efficient designs for future projects, and can be used as a crew decision support tool for predictive planning of energy production and storage, Vard said.