Decreasing emissions and increasing efficiency of small boats

Hybrid and electric cars are becoming more common in our cities, lowering our vehicle emissions. And now, a transition toward sustainability is taking place in the marine world too.

A Canadian-based company, Glas Ocean Electric, is contributing to that transformation. The company converts boats to all electric or hybrid propulsion and develops systems to help operators reduce their costs and vessels’ emissions. They focus on small boats, defined as boats between 11 metres and 30 metres long (or 35 feet to 100 feet).

Small boats can be anything from fishing boats to small motor yachts, tugs or work boats. There are an estimated 17,000 fishing boats between 35 and 50 feet in Atlantic Canada alone. Despite their ubiquity, small boats are often overlooked when it comes to research and development. There is limited knowledge, for example, about the emissions they generate.

That’s one of the reasons Glas Ocean Electric turned to the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) for help. Dr. Sue Molloy, CEO of Glas, previously worked with NRC researchers while studying at the Ocean and Naval Architecture Engineering program at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
So she knew the NRC had the expertise to assist in building the understanding necessary to both develop business products and collect data with greater community value.

The company reached out to researchers at the NRC’s Ocean, Coastal and River Engineering Research Centre to work on a project to track small boat emissions and determine how they’re correlated with operational and meteorological data. The goal was to provide a baseline for small boat emissions that can be used to quantify decreases in emissions.

Gathering real-world data

Dr. Ayhan Akinturk, NRC Research Officer and NRC Project Lead, says most small boats are powered by fossil fuels, with diesel engines being common. Many of these vessels have older engines that do not have any electronic controls nor do they have data on the performance of the engine readily available.

“We need data on emissions to be able to set standards for reductions and to know when we’re making progress toward our carbon-neutral goals,” Dr. Akinturk says. “This project is setting that emissions baseline for small boats.”

The team installed sensors on 6 boats in Nova Scotia to collect data on wind speed and direction, boat speed and location, fuel consumption and emissions. The team also deployed a wave buoy in the area, calibrated to collect data on wave height and direction.

Dr. Molloy says making sense of all this data is a complex problem. The power required to sail into a headwind with one-metre waves and strong currents, for instance, is very different from what’s needed in calm seas and no winds. The team used machine learning techniques through a partnership with the Deep Sense group, at Dalhousie University, to integrate vessel movement data combined with meteorological conditions, a method that has enabled them to predict boat emissions with 96% accuracy.

NRC research supports business innovation

Glas Ocean Electric has used the data and model to build a software system that can be used on any vessel. The software shows users colour-coded levels of efficiency and a variety of other information, including trip cost. Users can specify the number of people on the boat and see how that affects emissions and cost. According to Dr. Molloy, boats using the software are expected to achieve a minimum 15% reduction in fuel use based on land vehicle research.

Individually, the emissions of these boats are relatively small, says Molloy, but “there are a lot of these boats, and they have an impact.”

Dr. Akinturk says this work helps operators make good decisions. “Every engine is designed to deliver its best performance within a certain range of parameters. Outside of that optimum region, its efficiency drops, and that has an adverse effect on fuel consumption and emissions.” Amid the variables that exist at sea, this solution would help operators find that optimum range where they burn the least amount of fuel, thus reducing costs and emissions.

Glas Ocean Electric, which has developed an electric motor that can be retrofitted to small boats, has used the data they collected through the collaboration with the NRC to advise skippers about when to use the diesel engine and when to switch over to the electric motor. For a lobster fishing boat, for example, the electric motor works well when they’re out at their fishing grounds, setting and checking traps, and moving the boat at slower speeds. The diesel engine would be turned on to steam only when going out in the morning and coming back at night.

“What is exciting about working with the NRC is that you’ve got a knowledgeable sounding board. They help you gain additional insight into your work and actively help by asking deep questions and connecting you with relevant groups. Through this collaboration, we collected hundreds of hours of data, which has helped us build our commercial system, and that has helped us further our understanding of the impact of fishing vessels.”