Kongsberg Maritime Launches EcoAdvisor for Offshore Vessels

Kongsberg Maritime has launched EcoAdvisor, an intelligent and dynamic decision support system for optimizing a range of offshore vessel operations. 

"EcoAdvisor is an outcome of a joint ‘Intelligent Efficiency’ research project between Kongsberg Maritime, vessel operator DOF Subsea AS (DOF), Sintef, NORCE, and Innovation Norway, with the aim of developing technologies to monitor and reduce the GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions during vessel operations," Kongsberg Maritime said.

It monitors the vessel operation and its environment, including power generation,  propulsion, environmental forces and control system dynamics. According to Kongsberg Maritime, EcoAdvisor enables operators to achieve reductions in fuel, emissions and maintenance costs, without compromising vessel redundancy margins or vessel operational efficiency.

"With stricter regulations and a global need for the industry to operate as sustainably as possible, EcoAdvisor provides live advice on how ship owners can reduce their carbon footprint whilst at the same time reducing OPEX," the company said.

“EcoAdvisor demonstrates clearly how a decision support tool relying on the power of digitization can help vessel operators remain competitive in a  growing green market,” says, Odd Hagen, VP Offshore sales, Kongsberg Maritime. “Several factors contribute to inefficiencies in maritime operations, such as multiple engines running at low utilization, load variations, and large power fluctuations due to mission equipment and thrusters. Vessel owners have found it challenging to achieve sustainable operations due to  conservative requirements from charters and a lack of a holistic  overview of their operations.”

“EcoAdvisor creates an intelligent and comprehensive overview of all these factors,  delivering advice that enables efficient, cost-effective and sustainable solutions to be made without compromising vessel redundancy margin. Further, the history log and reporting functions in  EcoAdvisor can be used to determine the Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index (EEXI) the Energy Efficiency Operational Indicator  (EEOI), and Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) to ensure compliance with  the IMO.”Credit: Saltwater Stone

How does EcoAdvisor work?

According to Kongsberg Maritime, EcoAdvisor works by collecting and analyzing real-time data from various systems onboard. These include dynamic positioning (DP), integrated automation systems (IAS), and navigation and power management systems (PMS). This data is passed through a non-linear optimization solver to find the optimal setup 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.

Based on this analysis, operational advice is provided to the Captain, DP  operator, and Chief Engineer as to what machinery (engines, batteries and thrusters) can be stopped to run the vessel more efficiently and sustainably. This advice is dynamic – if a change in the mean weather conditions (wind, wave, and current), power plant system or DP system settings is detected, EcoAdvisor's recommendations will be revised accordingly. All advice is backed up by a system overview indicating why these changes are desirable, how any steps will alter the balance between efficiency and redundancy margin, and what the real-time effect of the measures are, Kongsberg Maritime explains.

Voyage Energy Calculator Determines Total Energy Consumption

EcoAdvisor includes a Voyage Energy Calculator (VEC) feature for transit operation. This helps the operator to 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. This allows operators to decide the optimal speed with minimum fuel energy consumption for a specific trip, according to their departure/arrival time requirements.

Utilizing EcoAdvisor’s innovative features on the optimization of the use of generators, thrusters, and the setup of the power plant, while maintaining and ensuring safety during DP operations, DOF currently has  ‘Intelligent Efficiency’ pilot schemes running on two vessels Skandi Vega & Skandi Africa and are expecting positive data from these, Kongsberg Maritime said.

"We see there is potential for both savings and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and if the result from the pilot vessels is as expected, we  anticipate that this will be installed on a larger part of our fleet,”  says Arnstein Kløvrud SVP Technology & Integrated Solutions at DOF."