FINLAND With the trend growing among ship owners to
head for developing shipbuilding countries where labour costs are low and design and planning skills lacking with ready-made designs, the need
is also increasing to be able to offer complete design and material packages together with building advice and quality support. Of coming joint tasks, Mr. Delius said that there would be the
Renewable fuels technology W
ärtsilä Corporation is leading a consortium aiming at developing the use of methanol- consuming fuel cells to provide electrical power to marine vessels. The other members are
Wallenius Marine, University of Genoa and the classification societies Lloyd’s Register and Det Norske Veritas. The project is entitled “Validation of a Renewable Methanol Based Auxiliary Power System for Commercial Vessels” (METHAPU). The entire project will take 2.5 years, will costs €1.9 million, of which EU grants represent €1m. The main purpose of the project is to develop renewable-fuel-based technology for cargo vessels
in international trade. Wärtsilä’s role in the project is to study the suitability of a methanol-based fuel cell system. Other goals include that of achieving technical regulations necessary to allow the use of methanol as a marine fuel. Methanol fuel bunkering, distribution, storage system and a solid oxide methanol fuel cell system will be validated including safety and reliability aspects of the technology. The consortium’s research will be focused on a 250kW Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) unit. A
smaller 20kW unit will be installed onboard a Wallenius Marine car carrier. A lifecycle assessment and an operational safety assessment will be made. The results of the validation run and the tests will contribute to the second part of the research – the marine-compatibility of a 250kW unit. According to Erkko Fontell, general manager, fuel cells, at Wärtsilä, the construction and operation
of this research unit running on renewable methanol would open up attractive opportunities for using sustainable fuels for fuel-cell-based distributed generation and auxiliary power units in large ships. ‘In particular, this is an interesting option for reducing ship emissions when harbouring,’ he said. ‘Operation of the unit will also provide us with very important experience related to both the system’s design and its performance parameters such as electrical efficiency and stack durability.’ Ultimately, the goal is commercial use of methanol-consuming fuel cells on vessels. Since 2004, the company has been testing the functionality of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell technology
for fuel cells up to 5kW. A 20kW fuel-cell application is now being tested at the company's fuel cell laboratory. According to Mr Fontell, who is responsible for fuel cell technology development, moving to a 20kW power range is a concrete step towards commercialised application. The prototype of a 20kW fuel cell using SOFC technology is the first of its kind in Europe. ‘This
is an integrated power system which uses natural gas,’ said Mr Fontell. SOFC systems are fuel flexible. Wärtsilä focuses on methanol, natural gas and a variety of biogases
in its development programme, but there are also a number of other fuels suitable for SOFC-systems, such as diesel, biogases, landfill gas, coal bed methane and waste gases, as well as ethanol and other alcohols. The next goal of the development programme will be units up to 50kW, and in the long term fuel
cells with a power rating of 250kW, for use in combined electricity and heat production applications. Wärtsilä plans to commercialise the units in a number of marine and stationary applications. The former includes marine auxiliary power generation uses, and the latter commercial buildings like hotels, supermarkets, service stations, data centres, etc.
need for close market observation and analysis to create an attractive new type of dry or liquid cargo vessel that would successfully incorporate the broad Wärtsilä product range of in-house machinery and equipment as a comprehensive solution to their common clients.
Production surge Wärtsilä has also been expending considerable energies in boosting its production in Asia. Its Auxpac factory for marine generating sets in Shanghai was inaugurated in June 2006. The assembly factory is a joint venture with Shanghai Marine Diesel Engine Research Institute. It manufactures Wärtsilä Auxpac 20 and Auxpac 26 diesel generating sets for the shipbuilding market in China and elsewhere and is expected to reach full capacity in 2007. In September Wärtsilä, China Shipbuilding
Industry Corporation and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries announced a new joint venture to manufacture large, low-speed marine engines in China. The joint venture will develop, manufacture and sell a new generation of energy- saving and environmentally-friendly low-speed two-stroke marine engines under licence from Wärtsilä and MHI. The factory will be built in the Qingdao area, where CSIC is setting up a marine industry cluster. Production is expected to start at the end of 2008. The investments in Trieste and Vaasa to
raise production capacity are also proceeding as planned in order to increase the production capacity as of mid-2007. Engine assembly and testing capacity has already been increased, and the manufacturing processes are being streamlined. Wärtsilä continues to broaden its 2-stroke
engine and common rail (RT-flex) portfolio. The newest versions of the RT-flex84 and RT- flex68 respectively have been successfully delivered to customers. The development of the RT-flex82 engine in cooperation with Hyundai Heavy Industries is proceeding according to plan, meanwhile. The start of the first engine on the test bed at Hyundai is scheduled for the end of 2007.
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www.scheuerle.com 22 THE NAVAL ARCHITECT FEBRUARY 2007
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