EMEC Q&A Europe’s green initiatives
European shipbuilders may be struggling to hold on to market share but equipment manufacturers are still pioneering innovators in green technologies for shipping. Here, Dirk Lehmann, vp of the European Marine Equipment Council (EMEC) and MD of Becker Marine Systems gives his views on the sector
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Q: What are the current priorities of the EMEC Working Group for Climate Change and Environment and how is its work progressing?
A: Significant improvements in the environmental footprint of shipping are being achieved through the efforts of the European marine equipment industry. A major challenge is to transfer technology from laboratories on to ships and to raise awareness of this necessity in wider society. Considering that ships typically operate for 25 years or more, investment in upgrading older ships is necessary to make them ‘greener’ and more efficient, as well as setting a benchmark for future newbuildings. A short term objective for the marine equipment sector is to improve energy efficiency of ships by around 30%. In the medium to long term it has been estimated that energy efficiency can be raised by 60%. These ambitious targets can only be achieved, however, by continuous innovation and through increased cooperation between the actors within the maritime cluster. From the outset, it is important to identify the main areas of focus for the marine equipment environmental strategy. Ships interact with the environment in many different ways and in all the various stages of their relatively long lives.
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Q: Equipment suppliers are under pressure from ship designers and operators to come up with new "green" solutions and refinements to existing products aimed at raising environmental performance. Are current developments driven by customers' own requirements or generated as a result of innovation on the part of equipment manufacturers?
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A: Both assumptions are right. Marine equipment suppliers are under pressure from tough international competition and ever stronger demand from ship operators for environment-friendly developments. Thus, the related research and development work inside the equipment industry is both technology- and demand-driven. Often, even the evolutionary research and development work provides major catalysts for the later major breakthroughs in “greener technologies”.
Q: Since most ships are now built in Asia, Europe's market-place has presumably become more limited in recent years. What incentives are available to EMEC and/or its members to support research and development into new, more environmentally effective products?
A: European marine equipment suppliers deliver about 60% of their product to global markets beyond Europe’s boundaries. The technology of environment-friendly products is developed mostly within Europe; the production, especially of larger structures, is now a global business. Incentives given by EC or national government programmes to our industry are related to European research and development, not towards the production facilities.
Q: How well have equipment manufacturers responded to growing calls for the "greening" of shipping and the investment required for whole new technologies such as power management systems for dual fuel engines and the testing of fuel cells in a marine context?
A: Our industry has initiated and developed a range of technologies
to make shipping “greener”, and it is already a far more
environmentally sensitive business, as compared with a few years ago. Marine equipment suppliers have not “responded” to growing calls; they have created the calls by making available new and innovative technology to meet the needs of the industry. As mentioned in point one above, the technology is there, it is now up to the shipping market, the politicians and the regulators to “pull the trigger of application”.
Q: What do European equipment manufacturers need to ensure that they are still able to offer successful innovation to the global shipping industry in 2020?
A: Our industry is in need of well- educated human resources. We are suffering from a growing squeeze on the availability of young engineers. Additionally, governmental support for green technology relating to ship operators – in retrofits carried out in European shipyards, for example – would be beneficial in order to test available hardware and installation, as well as developing new technologies for the future. Renewable energies like wind and propulsion improvement technologies could make a far greater contribution to reduced emission from shipping if governmental support for “green shipping” compared with levels available in Germany, for example, to develop land-based solar energy and wind turbine technologies.
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