A project by pump maufacturer Grundfos aboard a Lauritzen Bulkers cargo ship shows that large vessels could be losing money on wasted energy.
The project, carried out on the 19,889-ton Durban Bulker, focused on efficiency in ships pumps.
The Durban Bulker project focused on the energy used in cooling off the ships engines. The ship uses pumped seawater to cool its engines, but the previous system did not take into account the temperature of the water. When the Durban Bulker is sailing in colder seas, the energy needed for cooling water is reduced, achieved by Grundfos' new system which uses controls, frequency converters, motor valves and sensors to control the temperature of the cooling water and heat transfer, in order to save energy and keep constant operating temperature on the engine and equipment.
Ships often use oversized pumps that consume too much power, says Kim Kirkegaard, Business Development Manager at Grundfos. After doing an energy audit we realized that a lot of energy could be saved with an improved pump system.
The project paid off. Kirkegaard estimates that approximately 35,000 USD per year will be saved with the Durban Bulkers new system. For larger container ships, the savings can amount to 500,000 USD per year.
"I was surprised when I found out how significant the energy savings were", says Søren Roschmann, technical superintendent at Lauritzen Bulkers. "By my estimates, the pumps on our ships can reduce energy use by 30 to 50 percent with new Grundfos systems."