Reducing environmental impacts - Marine
Our Bergen K reciprocating gas engine already offers substantial reductions in NOx, SOx and CO2 compared with conventional diesel engines.
Rolls-Royce is well placed to deliver significant improvements in ship propulsion systems, both through the supply of more efficient power systems and through our ship design groups - UT Design and Merchant Solutions. This capability provides fully integrated, high efficiency engineering solutions for complete vessels - hull, propulsor, steering and power systems all matched for optimum performance.
The benefits of this integrated engineering approach can be seen in the success of the company's Azipull thruster which is up to 16 per cent more efficient than previous thruster standards and is now a market leading product.
Gas turbines for commercial marine propulsion offer typically lower emissions of NOx than diesel engines. They also have much lower SOx emissions owing to the cleaner fuel that they use.
It is anticipated that increasing concerns over air quality and acid rain will require diesels to reduce NOx and SOx emissions either by switching fuels or employing specialist clean up equipment. Such equipment will add to the ship's cost, complexity and space requirements.
Although diesel engines are likely to remain the commercial propulsion plant of choice, gas turbines could in the longer term become a viable alternative, because of their low NOx and SOx emissions and their weight and space advantages. To compete with the high efficiency and low CO2 emissions of diesel engines, combined cycle gas turbine systems will probably be required.
Case study
Clean marine power from Liquified Natural Gas (LNG)
The Rolls-Royce Bergen K gas engine has been
certified to power the world's first major car and
passenger ferries running on LNG.
This engine produces up to 90 per cent less NOx and 20 per cent less CO2 than an equivalent diesel engine.
The use of an LNG-fuelled engine is enabling the ferries to operate in environmentally sensitive waters in Norway.
