Owners’ initiatives Car companies add their weight T
oyota, a key NYK client, has helped the line develop solar
technology to ship hybrid cars around the world. Three years ago 328 solar panels were installed on the car carrier Auriga Leader. The panels generate up to 40kW of electricity, which helps to reduce demand on the ship’s auxiliaries as well as cutting fuel consumption and emissions.
NYK says the panels help to save around 12 tonnes of diesel per trip – a modest but nevertheless significant contribution. However, one of the biggest problems is that the supply of solar power is weather- dependent and therefore not stable. ‘Even a slight change in the weather has a significant influence on the amount of power generated,’ said NYK. Engineers looked into expanding the number of photovoltaic cells on board, but found that just exacerbated the
Power of the sun
problem of passing clouds and storms by making the power fluctuations bigger. Researchers therefore turned to the same solution that land-based solar generating stations use to keep the power on when the sun isn’t out: really big batteries.
In response, the ship has now been fitted with a massive array of nickel-metal hydride batteries and its generator has been modified to run on low-sulphur diesel. The batteries,
which can be charged by solar power or the generator, help stabilise the fluctuating levels of solar power and minimise output fluctuations from the generator. If tests prove successful, NYK Line, together with Kawasaki Heavy Industries, hopes to develop an even larger solar power generation system for ships and eventually commercialise the system. Meanwhile, Nissan has
introduced a radical new eco- designed car carrier for shipping its zero-emission Leaf electric car. The 2,000-unit City of St. Petersburg has a spherical bow designed to reduce wind resistance by up to 50%. According to Nissan, the ship uses about 15% less fuel than a conventional vessel of similar size. The City of St. Petersburg is expected to cut annual fuel usage by 800 tonnes, which will reduce CO2 emissions by 2,500 tonnes.
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