FOCUS ON NORTHERN EUROPE
Future-proofing assets through innovation ESTABLISHED IN 1834, WÄRTSILÄ HAS BEEN AT THE FRONTIER OF ENGINEERING INNOVATION FOR OVER 180 YEARS. BEING A LEADER IN SMART TECHNOLOGIES AND COMPLETE LIFECYCLE SOLUTIONS FOR THE MARINE AND ENERGY MARKETS, THE COMPANY EMPHASISES ON SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION, TOTAL EFFICIENCY, AND DATA ANALYTICS. WORDS BY SIGURD JENSSEN, DIRECTOR OF WÄRTSILÄ EXHAUST TREATMENT. ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF WÄRTSILÄ.
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hey aim to maximise the environmental and economic performance of the vessels and power plants of their customers. Sigurd Jenssen, Director at Wärtsilä Exhaust Treatment explains how there’s more to exhaust gas abatement technology than just SOx and how scrubbing technologies are an excellent platform for future environmental innovation.
Sustainability
Wärtsilä has an important role in meeting the world’s increased demand for energy in a sustainable way. This is the cornerstone of their commitment to sustainability. This sustainability approach is based on economic, environmental, and social performance, striving to improve procedures and performance across a wide front. The overall focus is on ensuring profitability, providing environmentally sound products and services, and ensuring responsible business conduct.
A need for novel thinking
As an environmental technology with the potential to grow further, there is no better example of proactive innovation than exhaust gas cleaning systems (EGCS), or scrubbers.
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With environmental pressure intensifying rapidly and regulation on a range of sustainability concerns – including black carbon, SOx, NOx, and Particulate Matter (PM) – coming in the near future, shipping must champion technology solutions that can tackle this wide and diverse set of challenges. With mounting pressure on our sector from consumers, investors, shippers, and regulators, it is clear that shipping faces an urgent challenge to unlock more sustainable operations. Even if we had not all experienced the momentous shifts and changes that 2020 brought, there would have still been a pressing and unprecedented requirement to change the way we operate and mitigate our impact on the planet. The context and impetus for wide-scale environmental change has never been clearer. This places huge strain on owners and operators, who are facing the overwhelming challenge of having to comply with current environmental regulations whilst also planning for those that are likely
to emerge in the future. What’s clear is that these challenges need widespread and novel thinking, and technological innovation in a broad range of areas.
A favourable landscape for scrubbers
As an environmental technology with the potential to grow further, there is no better example of proactive innovation than exhaust gas cleaning systems (EGCS), or scrubbers. One potential solution to the challenges of the future in our sector is embracing a new way of thinking about these technologies as solutions beyond just SOx and Sulphur Cap compliance. Instead, we should focus on their potential – which is already being realised – to tackle many of the key sustainability issues and regulatory requirements that we expect will be implemented in the very near future. Before focusing on future emissions requirements, it is worth exploring the success of scrubbers with regard to supporting the industry’s transition to the 0.5% Global Sulphur Cap. The case for scrubbers continues to go from strength to strength, with favourable economics matched by a growing body of in-operation experience proving that they are an effective solution to cut SOx without any negative impact on the marine environment. For owners and operators who have invested in scrubbers, the joint rewards of seamless compliance and an increasingly favourable fuel spread speak for themselves. In addition, newbuilding sentiment for the technology is picking up, with the majority of containership, bulk carrier and tanker
s h i p b u i l d i n g -i n d u s tr y. e u
22-04-2021 12:12
