New DNV recommended practice establishes measurement framework for OCCS

Cristina Saenz de Santa Maria, CEO Maritime at DNV. " "OCCS has potential as a pathway for a large part of the existing fleet."

As we reported earlier, developer Carbon Ridge recently reported that one of its centrifugal onboard carbon capture and storage (OCCS) systems fitted onboard the 109,999 dwt, 2015-built Scorpio Tankers vessel STI Spiga in a pilot program had been assessed by DNV as able to achieve capture rates as high as 98% as the vessel undertook regular commercial operations.

Now DNV has published a recommended practice (RP) providing a standardized framework for measuring and verifying the performance of OCCS systems on ships, setting the stage for further developing onboard captured carbon solutions and technologies.

“OCCS has potential as a pathway for a large part of the existing fleet, and that matters given how long many of those vessels will remain in service,” said Cristina Saenz de Santa Maria, CEO Maritime at DNV. “Our Maritime Forecast to 2050 estimates that developing CO2 offloading infrastructure at just 20 of the world’s largest ports could reduce total world fleet CO2 emissions by 9%. With this recommended practice, we want to give the industry a shared technical language, and in doing so, support further development of onboard carbon capture solutions.”

The DNV‑RP‑0698 “Performance of onboard carbon capture and storage systems” is built around mass balance principles and defines a harmonized set of performance metrics, including capture rate, captured CO2 quantity, emissions to atmosphere, and gross capture efficiency. The framework is technology-neutral, covering pre-combustion, post-combustion, oxy-fuel and other approaches. Finally, a structured third-party verification process covers system documentation, measurement setup, performance calculations and uncertainty evaluation.

Chara Georgopoulou, head of maritime R&D and advisory Greece at DNV, said: “This recommended practice provides a structured way to account for the full performance picture, not just capture volume. It enables designers, yards, OCCS manufacturers, and owners to define and verify performance in newbuild and retrofit projects, supporting alignment between stakeholders early in system design and more informed investment and deployment decisions.”

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