Extra First Class COC Courses (Part “A”)

Subject: A5- Advanced Electrical, Electronic and Control Engineering Knowledge

Student Name and Number: Praveen Kumar, TMI/EFCE/2019/01

ASSESSOR: Mr. Sanjay Dabadgaonkar

Date of Submission: 06.04.2019

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Introduction:
MARPOL convention, Annex VI, Chapter 4 made EEDI (Energy Efficiency Design Index)
mandatory for new ships from 1st January 2013 and SEEMP (Ship Energy Efficiency
Management Plan) for all ships. It sets mandatory measures to reduce GHGs (Green House
Gases) emissions from ships. On board a ship, major energy consumers are main sea water
cooling pumps, fresh water cooling pumps and auxiliary machinery which require burning of
fuel for generation of electrical energy. Energy efficiency plays an important role in CO2
emission reduction which can be up to 53% of total CO2 emission. VFD (Variable Frequency
Drive) for engine room sea water cooling system on board ships has a significant potential of
energy efficiency and reducing overall fuel burning.

Main body:
VFD is a device which gets power supply from a network of 440V-60Hz and transforms it to
adjustable frequency and voltage with constant voltage to frequency ratio so that it will run a
motor at lower speed and torque our application demands. The output current waveform
approximates a sine wave. The application demand in most of the duty cycles is below the
extreme operating conditions. VFD can be easily installed in new builds and with minimum
modification in retrofits. Its payback period is less than twelve months depending on usage.
Energy efficiency potential of VFD shall be described in more detail in later sections.

Figure 1 in next page shows a typical VFD for a main sea water centrifugal pump induction
motor.

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VFD for engine room sea water cooling system consists of following components.
1. Marine Frequency Converter
2. Space Vector Pulse Width Modulation Controller using Insulated Gate Bipolar
Transistors (SVPWM controller with IGBTs)
3. Temperature sensor

Rectifier stage- A full wave diode bridge converts 3 phase, 440V, 60Hz power supply to
either fixed or adjustable DC voltage.
Breaking chopper- The DC output of rectifiers is controlled by chopper which is a DC to Dc
converter. This DC acts as input to the three phase Inverter.

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Inverter stage- IGBT power transistors switches the rectified DC on & off and produce AC
current and voltage waveforms at the desired frequency. The amount of distortion depends
on the design of inverter, AC line and DC link chokes and filters. The output of inverter is
variable voltage variable frequency with minimum harmonics.
Control system- It comprises a Direct Torque Control (DTC) induction motor drive with space
vector pulse width modulation. An electronic circuit receives feedback information from the
driven motor and adjusts the output voltage and frequency to the selected values with
constant voltage over frequency ratio. Controllers incorporate complex control functions.
IGBTs switch DC voltage at high speed producing a series of short duration pulses of
constant amplitude. Output voltage is varied by changing the width and polarity of switched
pulses which is done by gate triggers from SVPWM. Output frequency is adjusted by
changing the switching cycle time. The resulting current waveform approximates the sine
wave of the desired output frequency. The high speed switching of SVPWM inverter results
in less waveform distortion and lowers harmonic losses.
Direct Torque Control (DTC)- The speed control loop uses a P-I controller to produce the flux
and torque references for the DTC block. The DTC block computes the motor flux and
torque estimates and compares them to their respective references. The comparators
outputs are then used by an optimal switching table which generates inverter switching
pulses by regulating gate triggers. Motor speed, torque and current signals are available at
the output.

In new builds, VFD is installed in multidrive system in place of single VFD units. Multidrive
system consists of one common supply unit together with inverter units supplied from the
common DC bus. Common DC bus reduces the amount of cabling and space needed. The
multidrive system generates the required DC voltage in a central unit and feeds it onto a
common DC bus to which single independently operated inverters are connected.

Energy efficiency potential of VFD- To date most marine installations adjust to changes in
sea water cooling demands of process by inefficient methods such as throttling, bypassing
loops.
The most suitable onboard ship system for improving energy efficiency are sea water cooling
system with large centrifugal pumps. These pumps are not required to run continuously at
full capacity. The reasons are ships sail worldwide from tropical waters to cold waters and
recent trend of slow and super slow steaming speeds to save overall fuel consumption and
adjust to ETA. So these electric motors could be fitted with VFD to operate pumps on lower
speeds in partial loads during low cooling demand in above conditions.

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The electric power consumption of a pump is related to pump’s speed according to Affinity
laws. The reduction of pump speed will affect the system pressure head to the power of two
and electric power consumption to the power of three. For example, a reduction in pump
speed of 10% will save 27% of consumed power.

Flow Q1/Q2 = N1/N2

Head H1/H2 = (N1/N2)²
Power P1/P2 = (N1/N2)³
Affinity laws- proportion of speed (N), flow (Q), head (H) and power (P).

CO2 is the most common GHG & shipping industry today account for 3-4% of total GHGs
emissions in world. It is common for pump system to be over dimensioned. This design
criterion is set to meet the extreme conditions in which the ship may operate. E.g., the sea
water temperature is generally assumed for above normal operating conditions. Although it
is required for a ship to be able to operate in extreme cases and environments. Everyday
operation rarely comes close to such conditions and sea water temperature very seldom
reaches the design value.
A lot of energy is easily saved by letting sea water cooling controlled by a VFD with a
pressure or temperature sensor loop control. Using a VFD to adjust the cooling demand to
the operational conditions is the most effective method to save energy, overall fuel
consumption and reduce CO2 emissions. When operating a centrifugal pump, we can get a
fairly big reduction in energy consumption by even a small reduction in RPM of the pump.

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Performance of engine room sea water cooling system without and with VFD-

Fig. 2: Relation between the system curve, pump curves (with and without VFD) and
required electrical powers in both the cases

Figure 2 shows for a typical centrifugal pump,10% reduction in rated RPM reduces power
consumption by 27% close to BEP (Best Efficiency Point). Further decrease in RPM
depending on cooling demand will reduce power consumption by higher percentage
according to Affinity laws.

Sea water cooling system is dimensioned considering main engine, auxiliary machinery and
cooling demands based on worst case scenario which are above 32ºC sea temperature,

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maximum draft, nominal speed, foul hull, bad weather etc. However, all these rarely happen
at the same time. Additionally, an important factor is slow and super slow steaming which is
nowadays common. Ships today operate at a slow speed than nominal in order to burn less
fuel, a practice which leads to less heat production and thus the need for less cooling.

A case study done on an Aframax tanker shows the energy efficiency achieved from using
VFDs on her two main sea water pump.

Size- 2X65 kW
Annual reduction of energy consumption= 320 MwH
Annual savings~ $50,800
Reduction of CO2~ 221.83 tons per year

The return on investment was accomplished in less than twelve months.

The case study was conducted on more than fifty vessels and results are more or less the
same. The above savings and reduction of CO2 consumptions can further be enhanced by
installing VFDs on more centrifugal machines such as engine room ventilation fans, ballast
pumps etc.

Conclusion:
The majority of vessels today in operation and future new builds can make substantial
energy and cost savings and drastically reduce GHGs emissions by installing VFDs on
board electric motors. This innovative technology solution is type approved by classification
societies, safe for essential operations, reliable, energy efficient and eco-friendly.

References:
1. S. Dabadgaonkar, D. P. Dave, L. S. Tikore, K. A. Mehendale, G. Singh, L. Singh, M.
Mane, Advanced Electrical, Electronic and Control Engineering Knowledge Notes,
January 2015, Tolani Maritime Institute.
2. S. Dabagaonkar, A. K. Sen, R. Prasad, Green Technology for Eco-friendly and
Sustainable Shipping using Adjustable Speed Drive, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF INNOVATIVE RESEARCH IN ELECTRICAL, ELECTRONICS,
INSTRUMENTATION AND CONTROL ENGINEERING, Vol 3, Issue 11, November
2015.

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3. Jan-Erik Rasanen, E. W. Schreiber, Using Variable Frequency Drives (VFD) to save

energy and reduce emissions in newbuilds and existing ships Energy efficient
solutions, White paper- ABB Marine and Cranes, © ABB, 24.04.2012.
4. https://safety4sea.com/energy-efficiency-with-variable-frequency-drives/