The project, which was carried out on Lauritzen Bulkers’ Durban Bulker vessel, focused on the energy consumed to cool the ship’s engines. The engines are cooled by pumping in seawater, but no adjustments were made based on the shifting temperatures of the water, and the possibility of saving energy when sailing in cooler waters.
“There are a lot of pumps on ships. Often, they are oversized for their purpose and consume too much power. Among other things, this is because they are working to full effect all the time. We carried out an energy-audit on the Durban Bulker, and established that with the right system, a lot of energy could be saved,” said Kim Kirkegaard, business development manager at Grundfos.
Kirkegaard estimates that the energy savings on the Durban Bulker will be around US$35 000 per year, but that the savings on a large container bulker could be around US$500 000 per year.
“We have been focusing on reducing our energy consumption for quite some time, but actually I was surprised, when I found out how significant the savings really are. With the Grundfos-solution, we can reduce our energy consumption dramatically. My estimate is that we on average can spend 30–50% less energy on the pumps on our ships,” said Lauritzen Bulkers technical superintendent Søren Roschmann.
Grundfos sees great potential in this market. “It is definitely interesting to us. Roughly 60 000 ships are sailing the oceans, and there is room for energy improvements on most of them. On top of that we can add the approximately 2000 new ships that are built every year. They do not need only one pump, they need a lot of pumps, which brings along a great potential for business as well as energy reducing,” said Kirkegaard.
