Techno-economic analysis for decarbonising of container vessels

There are growing concerns on the effect of climate change and the environment. The share of shipping emissions in global anthropogenic emissions has increased from 2.76% in 2012 to 2.89% in 2018. In addition, the pace of carbon intensity reduction has slowed since 2015 with the average annual percentage changes ranging from 1 to 2%. The Levelised Cost of Mobility (LCOM) index is used to consider different options on a level field. This index comprises the CAPEX of the engines and tanks, the OPEX of the engines, the cost of the lost cargo space, fuel cost and CO2 cost. A Monte Carlo simulation is used to obtain the final unit of comparison of the LCOM which is expressed in Euros/1000DWT-km. The values utilised are sourced from literature review, or from a trained Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based on telemetry data of a 9000 TEU container vessel. Expected results are that LCOM values provide an indication of the cost that ship owners must bear to consider alternative fuels, or how policies may be invoked to encourage alternative fuels to be economically feasible to mineral fuels. Finally, given that vessels greater than 5000 gross tonnes must install fuel consumption sensors from 1 January 2019, this paper presents a framework on how telemetry data can be incorporated into a Machine Learning pipeline that can help answer specific business questions