MAN Energy Solutions has announced that it will begin developing retrofit solutions for medium-speed marine engines as part of a research association including WTZ Roßlau gGmbh and TU-Darmstadt. The three-year research project, ‘CliNeR-ECo’, is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) with initial work having already commenced at the beginning of 2023, according to the company's release.
CliNeR-ECo aims to develop concepts for diverse, medium-speed, marine engines that will enable the retrofitting of entire ship fleets at reasonable economic and technical costs. The project is focusing on the climate-neutral fuel, methanol, which is produced from green hydrogen with the intention being that results should quickly spawn other developmental projects for series production. In this respect, MAN Energy Solutions is currently planning a first retrofit project based on an MAN 48/60 engine; the first retrofit of a fully functional test engine is scheduled to reach the testbed in 2024.
With these maritime retrofit technologies, ship owners will be offered solutions that enable their existing fleets to comply with future emission targets for greenhouse gases. These will be introduced by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the EU in increasingly stringent stages from 2025 onwards in order to ultimately realise climate-neutral maritime shipping.
WTZ Roßlau gGmbH is a specialist in the field of energy conversion and will use a medium-speed test engine to develop combustion-process strategies for the retrofit concepts. This will be done in close cooperation with MAN Energy Solutions and will also form the basis for defining requirements for exhaust-gas aftertreatment.
The Technical University of Darmstadt will use a flow bench to work out the fundamentals of methanol mixtures in engines at its ‘Reactive Flows and Measurement Technology’ and ‘Simulation of Reactive Thermo-Fluid Systems’ departments. Together with MAN Energy Solutions, it will also develop the CFD simulation models required for adapting the technology to different engine sizes.
MAN Energy Solutions will transfer the retrofit concepts developed to large-volume four-stroke engines and prepare commercial development and production.