New Ships Meet 2020 Design Standard
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
A new CE Delft study has revealed that many recently constructed ships already meet the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) design efficiency standard for 2020, says Pan European Networks.
The study, commissioned by Brussels-based NGOs Seas at Risk and Transport & Environment, calculated the Estimated Index Values (EIV) of new ships built between 2009-2014 and concluded that the majority of container and general cargo ships built in recent years already meet the IMO’s Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) standards set for 2020.
While there was a small improvement in the design efficiency of new ships between 2009 and 2012, this changed significantly in 2013 and 2014. Of the ships in the study that were built in 2014, some 34% of container ships and 43% of general cargo ships also met the EEDI target for 2030.
The study identified a large variation in the EIV of ships of similar type and size, indicating that additional fuel savings and associated reductions in CO2 emissions would be possible if all ships were built to the best available designs and technologies.
The EIV improvements have coincided with increases in average design speed and decreases in main engine power for a number of ship categories, suggesting that hull or propulsion efficiency has been improved. The findings also suggest that, if design speeds were kept constant, larger improvements in design efficiency would have been possible.