The Week in Alternative Fuels

Here are some of the key developments in alternative bunker fuels from the past week.

PHOTO: Wärtsilä's medium-speed four-stroke engine was launched to the market this week. Wärtsilä

Engine makers are making strides towards piecing together, testing and rolling out tomorrow’s ship engines. Wärtsilä launched a new four-stroke engine to the market this week. The engine can be upgraded to run on ammonia and other fuels with carbon-neutral potential when these become more widely available and in demand in global ports.

Alternative fuel types each come with their unique set of challenges for engine makers to overcome through countless hours of exploring, building and testing. Ammonia can be toxic and lethal to humans even in small concentrations. Safety measures such as double-wall piping to detect and contain leaks are common practice for handling of not just ammonia, but also other alternative fuels, DNV alternative fuels expert Christos Chryssakis said in February.

A key challenge for methanol as a marine fuel is its low 12°C flashpoint – the temperature at which the fuel ignites. This is five times lower than the minimum flashpoint standard for most conventional marine distillate and residual fuel oil grades.

Alfa Laval has been developing a low-flashpoint fuel supply system for methanol-fuelled ship engines. This week it announced a deal with Swiss engine maker WinGD. The two will test Alfa Laval’s fuel supply system on a two-stroke methanol ship engine under development by WinGD from next year.

Wärtsilä recently came out with a dedicated methanol engine for ships, seven years after its first converted a merchant ship – Stena Germanica - to run on methanol.

MAN Energy Solutions has built a dual-fuel engine that can run on methanol and fossil fuels. Last year it won a massive contract to build eight of these engines for Maersk’s upcoming methanol-powered container ships fleet, with an option for another four engines.

Methanol is the most technologically mature alternative fuel type for ships today, DNV’s chief executive Knut Ørbeck-Nilssen said at the release of its Maritime Forecast to 2050 this week. DNV expects methanol, ammonia and hydrogen propulsion technologies for ships to mature further over the next 3-8 years.

By Erik Hoffmann

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Here are the top five stories in alternative fuels this week:

Wärtsilä launches dual-fuel ship engine with near-term ammonia potential

The dual-fuelled four-stroke engine can operate on diesel, LNG, biogas and biofuel, and can be upgraded to use future carbon neutral fuels such as ammonia.

Finnish marine technology company Wärtsilä has launched a new dual-fuelled engine which has different valve timing options that enables it to run on carbon neutral fuels with little modification, Wärtsilä says.

Wärtsilä is expected to reveal its first ammonia engine prototype by next year, followed by a commercial roll-out "soon thereafter".

“It is a small but powerful engine, and it provides an effortless transition to future fuels,” Wärtsilä Marine Power president and Wärtsilä Corporation executive vice president Roger Holm said.

Meanwhile, German engine maker MAN Energy Solutions is currently developing a two-stroke ammonia engine for large container ships and aims to make it commercially available in two years. The company is also poised to develop retrofit ammonia engine options for ships by 2025.

Similarly, Swiss marine engine maker WinGD has partnered with South Korean shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries to develop a dual-fuelled ammonia engine by 2025.

Shipping classification society DNV forecast that both two- and four-stroke ammonia engines will become more technologically mature by 2026. But expects that ammonia regulations and safety standards will only come into force by 2028.

Alfa Laval and WinGD to develop methanol-powered engines

Swedish technology company Alfa Laval will develop a fuel supply system for the Swiss engine maker WinGD’s two-stroke methanol engines.

The duo expects the methanol-fuelled engines to be ready by 2024.

Alfa Laval will provide a prototype of low-flashpoint fuel supply system (LFSS) for the methanol-fuelled engine, which will be tested next year at WinGD's facilities in Winterthur, Switzerland.

Alfa Laval says its fuel supply system is adaptable and has been used by shipowners in over 30 methanol projects.

As the industry is working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, WinGD expects demand for carbon-neutral fuel engines to grow in the future.

WinGD has also partnered with South Korean shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries to develop a dual-fuelled ammonia engine by 2025.

Finnish marine technology company Wärtsilä has also recently launched a dual-fuelled engine that can use fuels with carbon-neutral potential, while German engine maker MAN Energy Solutions is developing a two-stroke ammonia engine for large container ships.

Methanol most readily available of alternative fuels – DNV

Methanol is more technologically mature and available than other alternative fuels such as ammonia and hydrogen, DNV says.

Newbuild orders for large LNG-powered vessels continue to dominate, followed by LPG- and methanol-powered vessels, shipping classification society DNV says.

“By 2030 about 5% of the energy for shipping should come from carbon neutral fuels, and requires huge investments in onboard and offshore technologies and infrastructure,” DNV’s chief executive Knut Ørbeck-Nilssen said today at the organisation's Maritime Forecast to 2050 conference.

DNV claims that 5.5% of the total gross tonnage of ships operating today is compatible to operate on alternative fuels, while nearly a third of newbuilds can run on alternative fuels.

Regulations, access to investments and demand for environmentally friendly products from consumer are the three key drivers of shipping decarbonisation, DNV Maritime Environment Technology’s principle consultant Eirik Ovrum highlights.

Ovrum expects the transition to alternative fuels will be further propelled by a revised International Maritime Organisation (IMO) greenhouse gas emission (GHG) strategy.

The IMO’s 80th Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) meeting is scheduled for June next year. Member states are expected to adopt a revised IMO’s GHG strategy and shortlist regulatory measures that will be mandated for shipping.

Ørbeck-Nilssen says regulations alone are unlikely to guarantee a transition to alternative fuels and that cross-industry partnership are needed to speed up the process. He argues that equal investments in onshore carbon neutral fuel production facilities are needed.

DNV expects methanol, ammonia and hydrogen propulsion technologies for ships to mature within 3-8 years.

Individual shipowners will use different solutions to decarbonise their fleets as “no one solution fixes all," BP Shipping’s Kathryn Upson said.

Upson thinks biofuel as drop-in fuel could play a major role to curb carbon dioxide emissions in near term. BP has conducted multiple trial runs with bio-VLSFO blends such as B20 (20% biofuel) and B50 (50% biofuel). Initial assessments show positive results in curbing carbon dioxide emissions and BP will look to bunker more biofuel on its time-chartered vessels, Upson said.

Hapag-Lloyd’s chief executive Rolf Habben Jansen said it will bunker at least 100,000 mt/year of biofuels. He believes that carbon capture would play a bigger role as green fuels are likely to be in limited availability.

Gothenburg set to become Europe's first green e-fuel hub

In a major cross-sector collaboration for zero-emission shipping, Stena Line, DFDS, Ørsted and Liquid Wind have partnered with the Port of Gothenburg to establish an electromethanol (e-methanol) hub.

For the project, Swedish ferry operator Stena Line and Danish logistics firm DFDS have collaborated with FlagshipONE, which is jointly owned by energy companies Ørsted and Liquid Wind.

FlagshipONE is on track to become the world's largest e-fuels facility with a production capacity of 50,000 mt/year of e-methanol, according to the partnering firms.

Last month, the Port of Gothenburg announced a partnership with Liquid Winds and Ørsted to provide e-methanol by 2024, with the vision of becoming the "primary bunkering hub for renewable methanol in Northern Europe."

Green e-methanol is made by combining 100% biogenic carbon dioxide with green hydrogen. Renewable methanol can help reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 95%.

JERA and Uniper to explore ammonia production on the US Gulf Coast

JERA and Uniper along with ConocoPhillips intend to develop 2 million mt/year ammonia production facilities on the US Gulf Coast by the end of this decade.

They seek to develop green and blue ammonia production projects to cater domestic and export demand for ammonia, primarily to Europe, but also to Japan and other Asian countries.

An engineering feasibility study for the project is expected to be completed by the end of this year. They will subsequently assess green and blue ammonia opportunities.

Uniper is planning to increase its ammonia supply capacity to 1 million mt/year by 2030. Apart from ammonia, both companies aim to maximise their LNG supply to Germany and Japan.