Can AI reduce emissions from shipping industry?

The aim of the Green AI for Sustainable Shipping project (GASS) is to enable vessel owners and operators to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to the green transition by enhancing vessel performance and profitability. It will also help ship owners to comply with new regulations and agreements on reducing emissions from the shipping industry.

High complexity

Today’s industry solutions are usually based on input from AIS data and are often incomplete and unreliable. The GASS project aims to improve the energy efficiency onboard by using systematic data driven solutions to handle high complexity.

The partnership consists of Invest in Bergen’s industry partner Maritime CleanTec and companies Navtor AS, Grieg Star AS, Scandinavian Reach Technologies AS, Simula Research Laboratory AS, SinOceanic Shipping AS, and Sustainable Energy AS.

- We incorporate a great amount of data from vessels and combine these with a digital twin to develop services that can monitor, analyse, and optimize fuel consumption, describes Chief Sustainability Officer at NAVTOR, Bjørn Åge Hjøllo.

Accelerate green transition

The project is one of nine green projects to receive funding through the Norwegian Government’s Green Platform scheme.

- The Green Platform's objective is to accelerate the green transition in business. There is incredibly exciting progress, and the support we are providing to these major projects is a significant contribution to the government's goals for green transition and business growth, said Minister of Trade and Industry Jan Christian Vestre when he officially revealed the applicants granted the funding.

– Companies that invest in reseach and innovation activities are succeeding in the green transition. This is why the government has  decided to increase funds that will fuel R&D-activities. We want to both challenge the businesses to do research that they find useful, but also faciliate resarch that can solve the larger national challenges, sad Minster of Resarch and Higher Education Sandra Borch.

Upcycled metals from ships lower emissions in construction

Goal 12 in the UN’s sustainable development goals is to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. Reusing steel results in 70 per cent less CO2 emissions than ore-based production, which corresponds to an emission reduction of 1 kg CO2 per kilo of recycled steel. Recycling of steel from decommissioned oil platforms and ships hence represents a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions as an alternative to buying new steel from ordinary steel production. The market for decommission of ships is huge. Bbetween 5 – 600 ships are sent to decommission every year, a steel tonnage of around 12 billion.

The project «Upcycling maritime metals» is exploring how metals from decommissioning of ships can be upcycled to sustainable products used in the construction industry. This consortium received NOK 73 millions in funding from the Green Platform Scheme. This partnership consists of a large number of partners from the industry side, but also of customers and financiers as well as Invest in Bergen’s industry partner, Maritime Bergen.

One of the parties in the Upcycling-partnership is the Bergen based Nordic Circles, a frontrunner in the commercialization of recycled steel. CEO John Jacobsen and Chairman Fredrik Barth commented that the funding is key to build collaboration needed throughout the whole value chain, and vital to be able to not only create the technology, but also the new business models for a circular economy.