Marine Log - August 2007 - (Page 43) APL tests new cold ironing concept Cold ironing or Alternative Maritime Power (AMP) is the practice of shutting down a ship’s diesel auxiliary engines while in port and plugging into clean, shore-based power in the hopes of lowering harmful air emissions. While the practice has been embraced by U.S. West Coast ports, it has not been met with enthusiasm by the entire maritime industry. Some have cited concerns over safety, operation, cost and cumbersome cable connections from ship to shore—in some cases with up to 10 cables. Container shipping giant APL, however, thinks it may have latched on to a solution. On July 18, APL tested a new, more cost-effective method of cold-ironing on the 863 ft containership APL China. An APL spokesman termed the 18-hour test a “success” and said it had proved the concept. Plans are now to analyze the results of the test and assess the next steps. APL estimates it could reduce the cost of retrofitting its vessels with cold ironing equipment to one-sixth of the estimated original cost. The test was undertaken with financial support from the Port of Oakland, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E). Technical partners for the project were Progressive Electric, Los Angeles, Calif., and Wittmar Engineering and Construction, Inc., Signal Hill, Calif. Cold-ironing could potentially eliminate more than 1,000 pounds of NOx, SOx and particulate matter emissions in a single, 24-hour containership port call. Engineers at APL devised a plan to connect a single high voltage cable from a shoreside power source to the vessel’s bow thruster circuit. The bow What's more, by using the bow thruster transformer, there’s no need to install a costly additional transformer to facilitate thruster is a propeller mounted cold-ironing. in a ship's bow to push it sideAPL says the concept ways during docking. addresses the industry’s conThe bow thruster is driven by cerns: a high-voltage electrical motor. • The cost to retrofit vessels The motor is connected to for cold-ironing would the rest of the vessel's be about $225,000, far low-voltage power less than industry system through a projections of $1.5 high-voltage cable pounds of million. and transformer. • Safety is assured When the shoreside on two counts: 1) only power source is conone, relatively small nected to this circuit in cable is required to connect the bow, the electricity can a vessel to shore power and 2) be back fed through the cable the ship’s transformer can run and transformer to the vessel’s in parallel with the portable main switchboard to power the power source, allowing the vesentire ship. sel to switch over to shore By using the high-voltage cirpower without temporarily cutcuit, the vessel-to-shore conting power. nection can be made with one • Vessels should be able to 3-inch diameter cable instead connect to shoreside power at of 10 cables, as in some other any port worldwide. cold-ironing designs. This reduces the cost and complexity of making the connection each time the vessel is docked. 1,000 NOx Biodiesel tested in production motor yacht A 20m, 34-ton displacement production motor yacht was recently used as part of a technology demonstration to test the use of biodiesel in diesel engines. The demonstration project, which was undertaken by Horizon Motor Yachts UK Ltd., MDL Marinas and Motor Boat & Yachting magazine, was conducted along the southern coast of England. What prompted the demonstration was the dramatic rise in diesel fuel prices, as well as an increasing demand for improved environmental performance among yacht owners. Marine diesel fuel prices doubled in Europe between 2003 and 2005 and are expect- ed to continue to rise. Operating on biodiesel is better for the environment, as it is produced from renewable vegetable raw materials. The amount of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from combustion inside the engine is partly compensated by the amount of greenhouse gas absorbed from the air when the vegetables were growing. Additionally, biodiesel contains fewer aromatic hydrocarbons, can reduce emission of particulate matter and provides a higher cetane rating than mineral diesel. Propulsion for the fiberglass boat was supplied by two Cat C18 in-line, six-cylin- der marine engines, each rated 747 kW at 2,300 rev/min. The Cat C18 is an electronically controlled engine with a displacement of 18.1 liters. The engine is specified to burn B30 biodiesel, consisting of 30 % biodiesel and 70% regular mineral diesel. The fuel is blended prior to fueling, ensuring that the fuel being fed into the engines is B30 at all times. According to Horizon Motor Yachts UK, the vessel ran flawlessly throughout the tour, offering the same performance as with regular diesel and matched its previous best top speed of 24.4 knots. And, there was virtually no visible smoke even when starting the engines from cold. Also, the maintenance intervals are the same whether the C18 is running on biodiesel or mineral diesel. According to Cassia Pole, EAME Sales Manager Pleasure Craft, Caterpillar Marine Power Systems, says: “Sustainable development is among the top goals of Caterpillar’s Vision 2020 enterprise strategy. In fact, most of our marine engine models today are capable of burning up to 30 % of biodiesel as a standard.” www.marinelog.com AUGUST 2007 MARINE LOG 43 http://www.marinelog.com
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