Ecoships Claims 15% Ship Efficiency Gain

Ecoships introduced a customized version of the Six Sigma DMAIC approach to process and performance evaluation in order to optimize the energy-efficiency of the vessels under its management.

The technique has already resulted in Ecoships’ managed ships benefiting from up to 15% greater fuel efficiency, resulting in substantial reductions in CO2, NOx and SOx emissions.

“We specialise in eco-friendly and fuel-efficient shipping tools, techniques and technologies,” said Capt. Aykut Yilmaz, GM. “Our three primary goals are safety, fuel efficiency and minimum ecological impact. Through our suite of software tools, we can achieve these goals.

One of the first vessels under the program is the 25,000 dwt bulk carrier Bulk Rose. Delivered in 2011 from Turkey’s Cicek Shipyard and taken under Ecoships management in January 2014, the ship was initially consuming 840g/dwt of fuel per day. It now consumes 750g/dwt/day.

Ecoships used the DMAIC technique to identify the best technical and operational energy-efficiency solutions available, such as trim optimisation and weather routing software, along de-rating engines and retrofitting hardware such as rudder fins, shaft generators and waste heat recovery systems.  

“Bulk Rose was fitted with a shaft generator and we had access to most of the signals and measurements. But we identified that a minimum 10% reduction in fuel consumption could be achieved by operational optimisation,” saidYilmaz.

“After analyzing the data, we decided to retrofit a shaft power torque meter and monitoring solution for better analysis of the data along with optimal voyage planning and weather routing systems. We then fed all of this data into our software for real-time analysis of fuel consumption. The result was that we were able to improve energy efficiency by 11%,” confirms Yilmaz.