While the expertise of analysts can normally be relied on, pre-judging the will of supra-national government institutions is clearly a mistake. The commission’s announcement last week that it would monitor shipping’s carbon emissions at its member country’s ports rather than implement a system to reduce them, was one of a number of big ticket surprises at the International Maritime Organization’s Marine Environment Protection Committee.
I’ll leave reference to MEPC there, as BIMCO has made its own report available for members to read, but suffice it to say, the ETS U-turn was only one of a handful of green bombs thrown last week.
And rather than try and dissect the developments from the outside (it’s tough enough from the inside, after all) the back and forth put me in mind of practical rather than political matters.
If we set aside for a minute the regulatory backdrop and the need to reduce to carbon emissions then the issue – in some ways far more pressing for owners and operators – is to improve energy management on board their ship.
There are plenty of ways this can be done – and indeed no shortage of vendors ready to sell appurtenances and gewgaws that claim to save you a percentage of your daily fuel costs. So prevalent are these snake oil salesman, that at least one wag has used a conference platform to note that it should be possible to save 100% of fuel costs by implementing them all simultaneously.
The problem for owners is a thorny one. What should they fit and where? What kind of savings should they expect and how should they measure the results? These are serious questions when some of the vendors want a sizeable chunk of cash to fit their energy-saving equipment.
In fact, a ship owner or operator wishing to undertake a programme of energy efficiency improvements on existing tonnage might be better advised to put down the glossy brochures and think bigger. A comprehensive approach to energy management should combine certification, monitoring and training as a prelude implementing new equipment or systems on board.
Conformance to an Energy Management System (EnMS) plan as part of wider marine Health, Safety, Quality, Environmental and Energy (HSQEEn) certification, will provide owners with a roadmap which can deliver energy efficiency measures that are practical and appropriate for particular tonnage.
Improving energy efficiency from the ground up requires an action plan to measure and manage energy usage. Using tools like the ISO 50001 energy management standard can help drive such programmes and provide the baseline content that can be used to comply with the Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan (SEEMP), which all ships over 400 GT will be required to have on board from next year.
Consultants and class societies alike report increased levels of enquiry from clients asking for advice and assistance with energy saving measures that reflects this holistic approach.
A common observation is that owners can treat conformance to standards and compliance with regulations in two ways, with an obvious divergence in results. They can either put the piece of paper on board and be in compliance or they can embrace the initiative and save themselves real money. Many are coming to realise that there should be a genuine cost benefit to the exercise.
Before they rush to fit energy-saving devices, owners are advised to undertake an assessment of company systems and compare these to industry best practices as part of the certification programme, a process which will help them identify the most practical means of achieving the maximum reductions.
An HSQEEn process will put in place a system which the owner can use to evaluate the various energy-saving options to see which ones are right for them. There is a requirement within such standards to consider technological options that may be available, and it means owners won’t potentially waste money on equipment that is not right for their particular vessel.
Guides to HSQEEn management are becoming widely available and this kind of system means owners can take advantage of a similar process to ISM Code compliance and at the same time demonstrate they are going beyond the regulatory minimums.
A comprehensive energy review should provide an effective gap analysis, enabling the operator to upgrade their management system and identify areas for action. Any owner taking on new tonnage – and there are a few even in this market – can use ISO 50001 to establish baselines, identify areas of potential improvement and help set objectives and targets.
Only then will they have in place a system for evaluating the various hardware and software options and deciding which are the right ones for them, based on ship type and trading patterns.
So far so simple, but as with decisions on similar “cost-saving” systems such as improved communications, an energy management programme requires commitment and dedication from top management downwards if it is to work. The additional workload should be limited, since ISO 50001 is designed along similar principles to the ISM Code, with which owners and managers are already familiar.
While every management system creates a certain amount of paperwork, building an energy management system on top of ISM Code means the net increase in workload should be minimal.
Being certified for energy management means that an owner should start to see energy savings quickly. As with any new system, the argument that to implement it creates paperwork and additional call on resources should be offset when the user begins to see tangible benefits in terms of cost.
That means that, regardless of what does and doesn’t get decided at IMO, owners have the ability to take energy management into their own hands, cutting costs and reducing carbon emissions in the process.
Source: BIMCO