MAN Energy Solutions and Wessels Marine GmbH have announced a technical showcase whereby the 2017-retrofitted ‘Wes Amelie’, a 1,036-teu feeder container ship, will use liquefied SNG (Synthetic Natural Gas) produced from renewable electrical energy as drop-in fuel, the company said in its release.
The companies are cooperating on the Wes Amelie project with Nauticor, the LNG transportation company, and Unifeeder, the charter company.
To demonstrate that SNG can successfully be used as shipping fuel, 20 of the 120 tons of LNG that the Wes Amelie typically uses per round trip will be replaced by climate-neutral SNG. As a result, CO2 emissions are expected to decline by 56 tons for this trip.
Automobile manufacturer Audi’s Power-to-Gas facility in Werlte, where a liquefaction plant is currently under construction, will provide the SNG, which will be generated by wind energy and is thus 100% climate-neutral. The SNG trip will take place after the completion of the liquefaction plant in Q2 2020.
The Wes Amelie, owned and managed by Wessels Reederei (Haren/Ems), previously made headlines in 2017 when its MAN 8L48/60B main engine was retrofitted to its current, four-stroke MAN 51/60DF unit that enables dual-fuel operation – the first such conversion of its type the world had ever seen.
A pioneer of this technology, MAN Energy Solutions commissioned the Werlte-based methanation plant, in partnership with Audi, in 2013. While the 6 MW methanation unit is still the largest of its kind in Europe today, MAN now offers a 50 MW EPC Power-to-X solution to ramp up the generation of synthetic fuel: “We need Power-to-X out of the labs and into the market in order to produce more competitive, renewable fuels by using scaling effects”, concluded Eefting.
The ship-owning company from Haren/Ems, Wessels Reederei, initiated the pioneering conversion of the Wes Amelie to dual-fuel running in 2017. A milestone within the development of the European container-feeder market, the conversion showed that existing engines could be converted to LNG operation with a tremendous effect on exhaust emissions and the environment.
MAN Energy Solutions reports that the retrofit enabled the Wes Amelie to significantly reduce its SOx emissions by >99%, NOx by approximately 90%, and CO2 by up to 20%. As a result, the vessel now meets both Tier II and Tier III emission requirements set by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
About Wessels Marine
Wessels Marine GmbH, an independent company that emerged from Wessels Reederei, is a consulting and project-development company for the use of LNG as a maritime fuel. Its range of services covers technical, operational and commercial topics for the use of LNG and serves shipping companies, companies in the shipbuilding supply industry, and LNG providers.
About Wessels Reederei
With a current fleet of 28 ships, Wessels Reederei is one of the largest managers of coastal vessels globally. It has a fleet of some 21 coasters, four container and five multipurpose vessels and is based in Haren/Ems, Germany.