Green showpiece vessel: almost 100 % less emissions

Brussels [ENA] The crane vessel MS Triton has developed into the Green Deal showpiece of Europe’s inland navigation by reducing her pollutant emissions by almost 100 per cent. Reporting the success the €8.5m EU Clean Inland Shipping (Clinsh) project said the hybrid ship was one in a fleet of 43 that were either refitted with green engines or techniques and using alternative fuels like fossil free diesel and liquefied natural gas.

The Triton has been a participant in the project since September 2019. Its propulsion, bow thruster and crane are now electrically powered with the energy generated by a diesel engine that meets the latest Euro VI+ environmental standards. The owners, Van der Meulen Woudsend BV, converted their 49.50-meter vessel into a hybrid ship, which now emits 99 percent less soot, 16 percent less CO2 and 98 percent less nitrogen. The conversion last spring was made possible by Clinsh with a subsidy of €150,000. A spare generator prescribed by the Environment & Transport Inspectorate ensures that failure or malfunction can be absorbed.

The EU says its objective of more sustainable and cleaner navigation on inland waterways will be achieved by putting emission reductions into practice and making the reduce soot emissions. “With larger ships, conversion is a lot easier, because you then have the space to run the vessels with electric motors”, says owner Mark van der Meulen. “With relatively small barges, such as our Triton, you have only 50 meters in length to use. That is rather limited, but these ships are indispensable on the Frisian inland waterways”. His Company specializes in the supply and installation of rubble, dredging of canals, lakes and harbors, construction and maintenance of natural banks, Ground transportation and wet earth moving.

After three rounds of tendering 43 ships were recruited for Clinsh. The fleet consists of 14 ships refitted with a greening technique with the other ships using a variety of techniques and alternative fuels like GTL, LNG and HVO. According to Clinsh the installation of the monitoring equipment turned out to be quite a challenge. On some ships two or three engines were equipped with monitoring equipment. Another point of attention was fuel meters. In practice a lot of ships were not equipped with fuel meters and had to comply with the new demands. The project monitors said they eventually successfully managed all problems.

However, especially during the first COVID-19 period in the spring of 2020 it had been impossible to fix some issues on the ships. The measuring company had to be flexible to achieve results. For most of the ships it turned out that there was only a small difference between the continuous monitoring data and the discontinuous measurements. Currently all validated data was being analyzed and emission factors and emission scenarios developed. The end results will be presented at next year’s Clinsh conference. A number of inland ports including Nijmegen and Rotterdam plan to ban vessels with dirty engine but give cleaner vessels substantial discounts on port dues.

Clinsh is a multi-year demonstration project in which emissions-reducing technologies and alternative fuels are being tested. It will provide data about their effectiveness and operating costs. Clinsh was launched in 2016 and is co-funded under the European Commission’s €3.4bn LIFE program. The total project value is over €8.5m that will be invested by the 17 partners in various schemes aimed at the sustainability of the inland shipping sector. The Clinsh consortium comprises Dutch, Belgian, German and English public and private organizations. Under the project participating barges with catalytic converters and cleaner fuel are being monitored.