Wärtsilä to develop methane slip-reducing engines for shipping

Wärtsilä has set out to build low-pressure two-stroke and four-stroke engines that can reduce methane slip from various vessels including cruise ships, ferries, tankers, container ships and gas carriers.

PHOTO: A Wärtsilä engine. Wärtsilä

Methane slip occurs when unburned methane from ship engines escapes into the atmosphere. Since it is unplanned for and therefore largely unmeasured, it poses a significant threat to the environment due to methane’s high global warming potential as a greenhouse gas.

Finnish engine maker Wärtsilä is part of a VTT Technical Research Centre project that takes aim at “minimising methane slip from marine engines, [and] advancing the environmental and climate benefits of LNG as a ship fuel.”

Apart from Wärtsilä’s engines, the project - named "Green Ray" - will see oil supermajor Shell test its aftertreatment system to reduce methane slip. Shell claims its “proprietary methane abatement catalyst system” has reduced methane slip by almost 90% in demonstrations.

These technologies will be demonstrated on two newbuilds and retrofitted to an additional existing vessel during the project, which runs until 2027. These will also be fully capable of running on liquefied biomethane - which is nearly identical to LNG in molecular composition.

LNG has been gaining attention as one of shipowners' most preferred near-term alternative fuel choices. Classification society DNV’s data shows that the number of LNG-powered vessels in operation or on order has gone up by 189 since last year, to 389 this year.

But “methane slip has become an important factor in ship owners’ decisions about whether to use LNG fuel,” said VTT’s principal scientist Kati Lehtoranta.

“Taking these solutions for newbuilds and retrofits to near commercial readiness will be an important step for the long-term viability of LNG as a marine fuel,” believes Wärtsilä Marine Power’s general manager Sebastiaan Bleuanus.

The EU’s funding programme for research, Horizon Europe, has granted funds worth around $7.4 million to the project that also includes French shipyard Chantiers de l'Atlantique, shipping company CMA CGM, classification society DNV, the Finnish Meteorological Institute, ship manager MSC Cruises Management and non-profit organisation Revolve Water.

By Tuhin Roy

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