The “Blue Visby Solution” offers a simple yet ambitious plan to achieve substantial fuel and emissions savings for cargo ships worldwide. By optimizing speed and timing and eliminating inefficiencies, significant environmental benefits can be realized without making any modifications to the ships themselves.
Although shipping is an efficient way to transport bulk goods, it accounts for approximately 3% of global man-made carbon emissions. Decarbonizing long-haul cargo ships is particularly challenging due to their unique energy requirements.
The future of shipping is filled with exciting technological advancements, including hydrogen, green ammonia, and methanol powerplants, as well as innovative solutions like Flettner rotors and giant autonomous kites. However, the Blue Visby Solution stands out as particularly fascinating because it requires no ship modifications; instead, it focuses on changing the way ships are piloted.
The Blue Visby team highlights that most cargo ships currently operate under the “sail fast, then wait” (SFTW) practice. This means they prioritize speed over schedule adherence, resulting in idle waiting time at their destination ports. This idle time leads to unnecessary fuel consumption, which could be mitigated with a different approach to piloting.
The Blue Visby Solution necessitates extensive connectivity, coordination, and involvement from a wide array of stakeholders on a global level. However, at its core, it’s remarkably straightforward. It simply involves instructing ships to reduce speed, ensuring they arrive at port precisely on schedule.
By powering through the water at a slower pace, the solution significantly reduces hydrodynamic drag, leading to substantially lower fuel consumption and emissions. Importantly, this adjustment has no impact on the speed of cargo delivery; ships continue to load and unload at the same predetermined times.
The Blue Visby team’s study of 3,651 Panamax vessels making 20,580 trips in 2022 revealed that making timing adjustments could reduce emissions by a median rate of 23.2% without impacting customer outcomes.
Another study by NAPA, a member of the Blue Visby Consortium, analyzed 150,000 voyages from 13,000 cargo ships in 2019 and found that 87% of voyages could reduce their speed by an average of just 1 knot, meeting all deadlines while decreasing emissions by 16%. These findings highlight the significant potential for emission reductions in the shipping industry.
The initial sea trials have concluded successfully. Two bulk carriers, the M/V Gerdt Oldendorff, and the M/V Begonia, implemented the “Blue Visby Solution” in its entirety, incorporating software, technical and operational systems on their voyages to Australia.
The M/V Gerdt Oldendorff achieved an impressive estimated CO2 reduction of 28.2% compared to its standard SFTW speeds, while the M/V Begonia achieved a 12.9% reduction, resulting in an average reduction of 17.3%. This demonstrates a significant impact, exceeding the potential of some large sail systems, all achieved through a simple scheduling adjustment.
The early results are very promising, but eradicating SFTW thinking from the global shipping industry is a significant challenge. According to Marine Log, this practice has been around since the era of sail. It is deeply ingrained in long-standing contracts between shipping companies, customers, ports, dockworkers, and numerous interconnected services in global logistics, often with built-in incentives.
The Blue Visby consortium has developed a groundbreaking contractual framework centered on a multilateral benefit-sharing mechanism. This innovative approach enables ship owners, charterers, and cargo interests to collectively bear the costs and reap the rewards of factors like longer ocean passages, fuel savings, and emissions reductions. By creating a win-win-win scenario, the consortium aims to encourage active participation from all parties. The inaugural sea trial also verified the effectiveness of this benefit-sharing system.
In addition to the immediate benefits of fuel and cost savings, as well as enhanced punctuality, there are several secondary advantages. By minimizing extended anchor waiting times, hull fouling is reduced, leading to improved long-term efficiency. Furthermore, the initiative contributes to better air quality around ports, while the reduced speed at sea lowers underwater noise pollution and the risk of whale strikes.
It’s a clear win-win for most of the parties involved and for the environment. This solution will continue to bring benefits as other decarbonization technologies emerge. While green fuels may be more costly and range may be a concern, sailing at a slower pace will result in more cost savings and extended useful range once clean cargo shipping becomes operational.
“Decarbonization is unattainable without energy efficiency, and energy efficiency is impossible if ships continue to Sail Fast Then Wait,” state Blue Visby Consortium co-ordinators Haris Zografakis and Pekka Pakkanen in a press release. “The CBH Prototype Trials demonstrate that the Blue Visby Solution will be a central element of any successful decarbonization strategy for all maritime stakeholders: shipowners, charterers, traders, cargo interests, terminals, and ports.”
“We are very excited to see the results of the first Prototype Trials, conducted with invaluable support from Consortium member CBH Group,” says CEO Christian Wounlund. “All components of the Blue Visby Solution were tested: contracts, software, operations, and the benefit sharing mechanism. While both the Virtual Pilot Program and the Prototype Trials will continue in the coming months, we are on track for commercial deployment this year.”
