Traditionally, ships are powered by fossil fuels in combustion engines, causing 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Alternative installations have yet to prove their reliability and are currently not as cheap or technological ready.
To enable ship-owners to prepare their ship for the future, but postpone their decision on which alternative installation to choose, it is the objective of this research to develop and validate a method for modular design of the power supply system of a ship, that allows a low-impact refit to lower the ship’s greenhouse gas emissions when the alternative power supply technology is ready.
This method is developed within the scope of short-sea dry cargo vessels with little auxiliary power(<20%) that is to be refitted before 2050, but the method is kept as general as possible. The studied background information includes greenhouse gases, possible alternative installations, low-impact refits, and modularity. Furthermore, the method is verified and validated using two different case ships.
In this report information about the method for modular design can be found, but also information on alternative power supply systems. The method is presented in chapter 5 and 6. It is concluded in chapter 7 that the developed method is effective and enables a low-impact refit, without significant negative impact on the initial design.It is concluded from this research that the method is effective and enables a low impact refit, without significant negative impact on the original design.For readers who want to know more about the alternative installations instead of the method, some basic information about available energy carriers and power supply units can be found in 2.3, the components of alternative installations of the case ship can be found in chapter 4 and the effect of those installations on the design to be found in section 5.3.