Design and simulation of hybrid propulsion systems for reduction of fuel oil consumption and shipping emissions

The volatile world economy greatly affects the profitability of the shipping industry. The adoption of stricter emission policies from the EU and the IMO will make mandatory for the designers the investigation of strategies aiming to reduction in fuel consumption and thus emissions from the shipping industry. The potential of Hybrid propulsion systems and hybrid power train for the auxiliary loads was investigated due to their successful application in automotive industry. In order to assess the potential of hybrid technology, a ship voyage simulator was built in a modular and scalable way and the mathematical modelling is briefly presented. In addition, optimization of the power train scenarios was performed adopting the Equivalent Cost Minimization Strategy (ECMS). The results show potential in fuel savings at auxiliary loads because of the absence of conversion losses, while for the main conventional hybrid propulsion, the sensitivity analysis demonstrates the potential for future saving