(SPAY, Germany) — With the Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index (EEXI), new benchmarks for the energy efficiency of ships came into force in January as an integral part of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) long-term climate objectives. In order to comply with the EEXI regulations, an increasing number of vessels are operating at lower speeds (slow steaming) to reduce fuel consumption.
Schottel offers its customers the option of adapting the propulsion system to the vessels’ changed operating profiles, thus achieving maximum efficiency. For this purpose, the German propulsion expert is equipping existing vessels with new, hydrodynamically optimized propeller blades for the Schottel Controllable Propeller (SCP). The propeller blades are custom designed by Schottel, using extensive propulsion system and vessel analyses as well as calculation methods, such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD).
In addition to the savings resulting from an optimized operating profile, the new propeller blades, which are precisely tailored to the revised operating conditions, are expected to increase propulsion efficiency by up to 5 percent. Taken together, this will significantly reduce fuel consumption, thereby lowering CO2 emissions and the ships’ operating costs. Besides increasing propulsion efficiency, redesigned propeller blades will also ensure a reduction in cavitation and pressure fluctuations, as well as a decrease in noise emissions.
Schottel controllable-pitch propeller systems are characterized by their performance in terms of propulsion efficiency and bollard pull. The SCP is designed to be both robust and user-friendly, guaranteeing minimum maintenance and thus a long service life. Particularly suitable for vessels fulfilling a wide-ranging operation profile, the SCP provides optimal propulsion power for changing speeds or loads. With construction based on 60 years of engineering excellence, the SCP is a design that has been tried and tested in thousands of practical applications.
In order to reduce and ultimately eliminate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from ships, the IMO has launched a series of regulatory measures bundled in the 2023 IMO GHG Strategy. The strategy aims to reduce the carbon intensity of international shipping by at least 40 percent by 2030 and to zero by 2050. To achieve these targets, ship operators have to meet certain efficiency standards set by the EEXI from 2023. If the ships are not in compliance with the specified requirements, efficiency-enhancing measures must be taken to ensure unrestricted operation in the long term. In this context, retrofit propeller blades from Schottel are an effective way to reduce CO2 emissions, thus ensuring compliance with EEXI regulations.
– Schottel
