SAL Heavy Lift to Retrofit Ships with New Hydrogen-Methanol Injection System

Hamburg-based SAL Heavy Lift has become the world’s first shipping company to equip vessels with a new hydrogen/methanol injection technology.

With significant emission reductions in terms of CO2, SOx, NOx and other particles, the injection technology developed by Germany’s manufacturer of fuel-saving additive, Fuelsave GmbH, paves the way for making shipping greener and more energy-efficient, according to SAL Heavy Lift.

After more than four years of testing and development, the new and advanced FS MARINE+ hydrogen/methanol injection solution is now entering the next stage of validation, after which it will find its way to six SAL vessels as a permanent installation.

By dynamically injecting a mix of hydrogen, oxygen, water and methanol into selected parts of the air intake of both the main engine and the auxiliary engines, the system is said to ensure a much cleaner and thorough combustion process, resulting in reduced primary fuel consumption alongside lowering emissions and air pollution.

“We have tested a prototype on a generator engine of our MV Annette over more than two years with very convincing results. The FS MARINE+ system not only achieved significant fuel savings, but also emission and air pollution reductions which was verified by 3rd parties both during field trials and in laboratory tests,” Sebastian Westphal, CTO of SAL Heavy Lift, said.

Specifically, the FS MARINE+ generator has proven to make average reductions of 10% less CO2, 15% less SOx, 30-80% less NOx and 40% less particle emissions.

“With this system we are driving the clean fuel transition with a high impact solution. It can optimize the energy consumption and the environmental impact significantly irrespective of what fuel type you operate your vessel with. Thus, it is applicable with MDO, MGO, HFO, LSFO as well as LNG,” Marc Sima, CEO of Fuelsave, commented.

By investing millions of dollars into retrofitting the system to the main engines and auxiliary engines on existing vessels it may appear that SAL is taking a big financial bet, but the results in terms of savings and payback time prove quite the opposite, SAL explained.

“We ran the system for two years without a single incident and obtained results that matched the promised numbers. So, we see a technology that meets our green ambitions while also reducing the technical operating costs of the ships,” Jakob Christiansen, Naval Architect and Head of SALs Fleet Development Team, noted.

SAL’s MV Trina is the first vessel to be retrofitted with the system in Q1 2020. Following a successful system integration on MV Trina, five more vessels will follow, paving the way for a greener and more energy-efficient shipping service.