The design of emission control areas (ECAs), including ECA width and sulfur limits, plays a central role in reducing sulfur emissions from shipping. To promote sustainable shipping, we investigate an ECA design problem that considers the response of liner shipping companies to ECA designs. We propose a mathematical programming model from the regulator’s perspective to optimize the ECA width and sulfur limit, with the aim of minimizing the total sulfur emissions. Embedded within this regulator’s model, we develop an internal model from the shipping liner’s perspective to determine the detoured voyage, sailing speed, and cargo transport volume with the aim of maximizing the liner’s profit. Then, we develop a tailored hybrid algorithm to solve the proposed models based on the variable neighborhood search meta-heuristic and a proposition. We validate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology through extensive numerical experiments and conduct sensitivity analyses to investigate the effect of important ECA design parameters on the final performance. The proposed methodology is then extended to incorporate heterogeneous settings for sulfur limits, which can help regulators to improve ECA design in the future.
Maritime transportation is an essential pillar of modern societies, serving as the backbone of global trade. The shipping industry relies heavily on fossil fuels, significantly impacting the environment and contributing to climate change. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has introduced a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping and decarbonize the industry to combat this issue. This strategy aims to accomplish energy efficiency gains, transition to alternative fuels, and implement market-based measures.
Various energy efficiency indicators are in use to monitor the performance of ships, both from technical and operational perspectives. Building upon previous research that identified shortcomings in these indicators, this thesis investigates alternative methods of assessing the energy efficiency of ships. Emphasizing the importance of a benchmarking tool, the primary objective of this thesis is to contribute to the policy debate on reducing emissions in international shipping by developing a comprehensive carbon intensity indicator.
The thesis comprises four articles addressing various approaches to monitoring ship carbon emissions. The first article focuses on the influence of weather conditions on a ship’s energy efficiency, thereby contributing to the ongoing discussion on weather correction factors. Using model-based machine learning techniques, this article illustrates the diverse sea conditions encountered, their impact on energy efficiency, and the necessity of accounting for this diversity through multiple correction factors.
The second and third articles introduce and develop the concept of operational cycles for maritime transportation, drawing inspiration from the driving cycles employed in the automotive industry. The second article describes the process of generating operational cycles for the maritime sector as a novel concept. It validates this concept using real-world data obtained from a fleet of container ships. Building upon this foundation, the third article extends the concept by elaborating more comprehensive cycles that better represent real-world indicators.
The fourth article explores voluntary reporting frameworks in the shipping industry. It focuses on the Clean Cargo case and investigates the needs and interests of its members regarding this private initiative and related reporting framework. The discussion revolves around the role of these voluntary frameworks as complementary approaches to regulatory frameworks towards maritime decarbonization.
Based on the methodology developments and analysis through the thesis, the following key findings and recommendations are presented:
• The weather impact on ships’ fuel consumption prevents an accurate and real assessment of ships’ efficiency. Multiple weather correction factors for energy efficiency indicators introduce a novel approach.
• Inspired by the automotive industry, maritime operational cycles improve the assessment of technical and operational aspects of a ship’s energy efficiency. The cycles reduce the variability inherent to energy
efficiency indicators and are suitable as benchmarking tools.
• Although the IMO regulatory framework remains at the core of the maritime decarbonization strategy, regional regulatory frameworks and private initiatives have demonstrated their capacity to enhance industry
practices and facilitate regulatory developments.
This thesis contributes to enhancing carbon emissions monitoring in the maritime industry by introducing new methodologies and assessments. The resulting proposals are designed to enrich ongoing discussions within the IMO and complement the existing regulatory frameworks.
GreenHopper is the first Danish zero-emission ferry developed as a test platform for autonomous waterborne navigation technologies. The paper presents technology development within the innovation project ShippingLab Autonomy, which led to the commissioning of GreenHopper at Limfjorden (DK) in December 2022. The technology research resulted in a holistic system architecture for surface vessel autonomy, based on distribution of functionality and responsibility on software modules, similar to the structure observed in the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Seafarers Training Certification and Watch-keeping (STCW) regulatory framework. The paper shows how this approach results in an architecture that supports safe behaviours of individual modules and of autonomous navigation at a system level. The paper presents the individual modules, specific features and benefits. Elements of the regulatory framework are highlighted to poise technology approval by maritime authorities. The paper reflects on lessons learned, discusses continued technology validation in dedicated operational scenarios.
The decarbonisation of shipping has become a high priority on the environmental and political agenda. The prospect of implementing an Emissions Trading System (ETS) for shipping has come to prominence as a proposed mechanism for speeding up the decarbonisation of the industry, with the EU taking proactive action to include shipping within the EU ETS by 2023. This paper analyses and provides a qualitative review of the historical development of the discussions and actions taken at both global level (by the International Maritime Organization (IMO)) and at regional level within the EU. A SWOT analysis of the potential implementation of an ETS for shipping is then presented. The paper concludes that an ETS for shipping can incentivise greater investment in, and deployment of, green technologies that will have the effect of reducing the carbon footprint of the shipping industry. However, the speed and significance of this effect will depend upon the specific shipping market segment and the relative stage in shipping market cycles over time. It is further concluded that despite the imminent unilateral introduction of shipping into the EU ETS, it is important that the IMO continues its work to develop a global ETS that promotes a ‘level playing field’ for competition within the sector and eliminates the risk of carbon leakage.
Shore power is an important green technology used by ports to reduce carbon emissions. This paper investigates how to design subsidy strategy for promoting the installation and utilization of shore power. However, while installation subsidies may promote the installation of SPI in ports, resulting in a reduction in ship emissions, utilization subsidies may attract more ship visits, which may increase the total emissions of a port. Therefore, subsidies for shore power utilization and installation should be optimized to minimize the cost to government (comprising the environmental costs of ship emissions, the cost of utilization or installation subsidies, and carbon taxes) and maximize the profit for ports (including profit from original and new ships, utilization and installation subsidies, and carbon taxes). Using the Stackelberg game methodology, we discuss five cases to give a comprehensive analysis of the design of different subsidy policies, including no subsidy, SPI-utilization subsidy undertaken by port, SPI-utilization subsidy undertaken by port and government, carbon emission tax policy considering SPI-utilization subsidy, and SPI-utilization and SPI-installation subsidies undertaken by port and government. Managerial insights are generated according to the theoretical analysis and numerical experiments results, which can give references to the government and port operators.
Harbour vessel emissions are growing concerns in the maritime industry regarding environmental sustainability. Accurate emissions prediction can stand in monitoring and addressing the issue. This study proposes a machine-learning approach using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for predicting harbour vessel emissions. The approach shows superiority over the bottom-up method introduced by the 4th IMO GHG Study regarding prediction accuracy. Actual emissions data from onboard measurements are used for training ANN models and as references for evaluating the methods. Compared to the bottom-up method, the improvement in error reduction can be up to 30% for predicting nitrogen oxides and 54% for carbon monoxide when only using ship-related factors as input variables. By adding selected meteorological factors in the experiments, the prediction accuracy enhancement can achieve up to 48% for nitrogen oxides and 62% for carbon monoxide. The proposed ANN approach could assist relevant stakeholders in improving emissions prediction and operations optimisation.
The “Initial IMO Strategy” was adopted in the 72nd session of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 72) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in April 2018. It has set, among other things, ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from ships, and purports to express a strong political will to phase them out as soon as possible. The most ambitious of these targets is to reduce GHG emissions by 2050 at least 50% vis-à-vis 2008 levels, and there is also an intermediate target to reduce CO2 emissions per transport work by 2030 at least 40%, again vis-à-vis 2008 levels. More than three years since the adoption of the Initial IMO Strategy, this chapter takes stock at the status of shipping decarbonisation and attempts to assess prospects for the future. Obstacles towards achieving the IMO targets are identified and discussed.
Ship designers face increasing pressure to comply with global emission reduction ambitions. Alternative fuels, potentially derived from bio-feedstock or renewable electricity, provide promising solutions to this problem. The main challenge is to identify a suitable ship power system, given not only uncertain emission requirements but also uncertain fuel and carbon emission prices. We develop a two-stage stochastic optimization model that explicitly considers uncertain fuel and carbon emission prices, as well as potential retrofits along the lifetime. The bi-objective setup of the model shows how the choice of optimal power system changes with reduced emission levels. Methanol and LNG configurations appear to be relatively robust initial choices due to their ability to run on fuel derived from different feedstocks, and their better retrofittability towards ammonia or hydrogen. From a policy perspective, our model provides insight into the effect of the different types of carbon pricing mechanisms on a shipowner's decisions.
Uncertainties on the global availability and affordability of alternative marine fuels are stalling the shipping sector’s decarbonization course. Several candidate measures are being discussed at the International Maritime Organization, including market-based measures (MBMs) and environmental policies such as carbon taxes and emissions trading systems, as means to decarbonize. Their implementation increases the cost of fossil fuel consumption and provides fiscal incentives to shipping stakeholders to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions reductions. MBMs can bridge the price gap between alternative and conventional fuels and generate revenues for funding the up-scaling of alternative fuels’ production, storage and distribution facilities and, thus, enhance their availability. By estimating the fuels’ implementation and operational costs and carbon abatement potential, this study calculates marginal abatement costs and estimates the level of carbon pricing needed to render investments into alternative fuels cost-effective. The results can assist policymakers in establishing robust and effective maritime decarbonization policies.
Havebrugsindustrien i nordiske lande er meget afhængig af drivhussystemer på grund af begrænsningen af det naturlige miljø og de strenge plantekrav for bestemte plantetyper. Kommercielle avlere i disse regioner støder på betydelige udfordringer med at garantere kvaliteten af planterne, mens de minimerer produktionsomkostningerne. På den ene side skal et drivhussystem forbruge en stor mængde energi for at give et tilfredsstillende klima for plantevækst. På den anden side, i de senere år, har energiprisen stigende i Europa ført til en stigning i produktionsomkostningerne for drivhuse, hvilket gør energibesparelse og optimering imperativ. Det er dog udfordrende for avlere at håndtere dette dilemma, fordi drivhusklimakontrol er et meget dynamisk og meget koblet komplekst system. Ved at analysere funktionerne i ikke-linearitet og dynamik i drivhusklimaet kan de eksisterende løsninger ikke korrekt opfylde de praktiske krav i gartneriindustrien.
For at tackle disse problemer foreslås en digital tvilling af drivhusklimakontrol (DT-GCC) rammer i denne forskning for at optimere aktuatorens driftsplan til minimering af energiforbrug og produktionsomkostninger uden at gå på kompromis med produktionskvaliteten. Arkitekturen i DT-GCC-rammen og de anvendte metoder er uddybet modulært, herunder fysisk tvilling af drivhusklimakontrol (PT-GCC) systemforståelse, design af DT-GCC-system, sammenkobling af DTGCC og PT-GCC og integration med andre digitale tvillinger (DTS).
DT-GCC omfatter en virtuel drivhus (VGH) og en multi-objektiv optimeringsbaseret klimakontrol (MOOCC) platform. VGH er den digitale repræsentation af det fysiske drivhus gennem modellering af de faktorer, der kan påvirke drivhusklimaet markant og aktuatorens driftsstrategier. MOOCC er ansvarlig for at definere drivhusklimakontrol som et multi-objektivt optimeringsproblem (MOO) og optimere driftsplanen for kunstigt lys (lysplan) og varmesystem (varmeplan). Desuden er en hierarkisk struktur af DT-GCC designet i henhold til funktionerne og ansvaret for individuelle lag, der gavner den praktiske realisering af DT-GCC med en organiseret arkitektur af design og styring.
Funktionaliteterne i DT-GCC er udviklet i en drivhusklimakontrolplatform, der er navngivet af Dynalight, som er kombineret med en genetisk algoritme (GA) ramme kaldet Controleum. Dynalight definerer et MOO -problem til at abstrahere drivhusklimakontrolsystemet med flere objektive funktioner, og omkostningerne beregnes baseret på modelleringsresultaterne fra VGH. Controleum er ansvarlig for implementeringen af GA for at generere en Pareto Frontier (PF) og endelig løsning af løsning til let plan og varmeplan.
Forskellige scenarier og tilsvarende eksperimenter er designet til at evaluere ydelsen af DT-GCC fra individuelle perspektiver, herunder VGH, MOOCC og DT-integration. Eksperimenterne på VGH verificerer forudsigelsesydelsen for kunstigt neuralt netværk (ANN) metoder på indendørs temperatur, opvarmning af forbrug og netto fotosyntese (PN). Hvad angår de to standaloneeksperimenter, garanterer resultaterne DT-GCCs evne til at kortlægge avlernes beslutningstagning om let plan og varmeplan og verificere MOOCC-ydelsen for at opfylde voksende krav og samtidig reducere energiforbruget og omkostningerne. Endelig, i DT-integrationseksperimenterne med Digital Twin of Production Twin (DT-PF) og Digital Twin of Energy System (DT-ES), afslutter DT-GCC det tilsvarende svar på forudsigelser og optimeringsanmodninger.