A Preliminary Study on the Application of Thermal Storage to Merchant Ships

Abstract

The shipping industry is focusing more and more on reducing fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. A non-negligible amount of fuel is consumed while ships are in port, waiting for loading or unloading, for heating up accommodation spaces and fuel tanks, while when at sea waste heat from engines exhaust is under-used because of low demand. In this paper we propose the use of thermal energy storage as a solution for the mismatch between heat availability and demand. A simplified system is proposed and the influence of design parameters (storage size, heat exchangers surface, secondary fluid mass flow rate, storage temperature) on the performance of the system is analyzed. The results of the application of a thermal energy storage system to a case study ship show that the installation of a storage tank of 1000 m 3 could reduce the fuel consumption from the boilers by 80%, which would lead to yearly savings of 268,000 USD. This preliminary analysis shows that there is potential of both economic and environmental benefits from the application of thermal energy storage to merchant vessels.

A novel solar concentrator system for combined heat and power application in residential sector

“…Relating to the thermal storage, instead, a cylindrical insulated tank has been considered assuming a global heat exchange coefficient of 0.5 W/m 2 K [40]. Also the volume of the tank is object of the parametric analysis.…”

Efficiency improvement on a cruise ship: Load allocation optimization

“…Some researchers focus on waste heat recovery. A valid technique consists in the application of energy storage devices for engines heat recovering [27][28]. In particular, thermal storage can be seen as a promising solution for the energy efficiency increase in marine transport field.…”

Organic Rankine cycle-based waste heat recovery system combined with thermal energy storage for emission-free power generation on ships during harbor stays

“…TES systems make it possible to store the waste heat released by the ship's main engine, and to use it when required on board. In this context, Baldi et al [10] investigated the use of water-based TES systems on board merchant ships and found that the installation of a 1000 m 3 TES would enable reducing the consumptions of the auxiliary boilers by 90 %. Ancona et al [11] proposed an optimization framework to minimize the fuel consumption of a vessel by optimizing the load of the ship energy system.…”

“…By proposing and evaluating a novel concept to supply zero-emission power during harbor stays for ferries, this work provides a solid contribution to the state-of-the-art. In particular, the two main novel aspects of the work are the following: i) considering the use of WHR power generation during harbor stays, while previous works investigating heat-to-power WHR systems for maritime applications were limited to consider the production of electricity during sailing [9]; and ii) considering the use of a TES system for electricity generation on ships, contrary to previous works where the inclusion of TES systems on ships was limited to the coverage of only the onboard heating demand [10][11][12]. In addition, the comparison of the use of stratified and two-tank storage solutions in terms of energy efficiency, volume requirements, and economic attractiveness on board a vessel is a novel contribution to state-of-the-art.…”