Maersk Supply uses Inmarsat API to optimize performance of battery-fitted AHTS

Maersk Minder is first Maersk Supply Service vessel to be fitted with a battery pack

An Inmarsat Maritime solution will help Maersk Supply Service optimize the performance of its first vessel fitted with a battery installation, the AHTS Maersk Minder, and to evaluate how best to optimize the use of zero-emission energy storage systems across its fleet.

Inmarsat Maritime’s Fleet Data IoT platform will enable Maersk Supply to use the Fleet Data end-user API to seamlessly gather data from onboard equipment, automatically organize it with time-stamps, synchronizes it, and upload it to vizualisation tools, all in a user-friendly format.

Beyond streamlining in-house reporting and analytics, the API makes data available to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), including VPS, whose data-driven decarbonization system, Maress, provides real-time insight into vessel performance to support fuel savings and emissions reduction. Maersk supply will use Maress to evaluate the effectiveness of the battery system in terms of peak shaving and energy efficiency and determine the requirements for future battery installations for the rest of the fleet.

“If the maritime industry is to achieve its emissions-reduction targets, it will rely on transparency, smart use of data and collaboration – and the Maersk Minder project combines all three,” said Sindre Bornstein, chief commercial officer at VPS Decarbonization. By providing an open platform for data analytics, Inmarsat enables Maress to deliver actionable insights, which in turn help Maersk Supply Service to enhance vessel efficiency in the short term and decarbonise its fleet through optimised battery-enabled operations in the long term.”

With complete visibility into the performance of the vessel and its hybrid battery system, Maersk can adapt its operations swiftly to keep pace with evolving environmental regulations. Notably, one of Maersk’s clients has already stipulated the use of battery power in certain offshore operations. This underscores the competitive advantage gained by sharing real time data on the impact of the energy storage system (ESS) on vessel efficiency and emissions with the charterers.

“There are various economic and regulatory motivations for installing battery power on an offshore vessel, but charterer expectations are a particularly compelling factor,” said Sverre Vange, energy performance manager at Maersk Supply Service. “In the years ahead, attracting charterers will increasingly rely on the deployment of a battery system so the ability to keep charterers informed of the system’s performance will be invaluable.”

Vange added that automating data flows also frees seafarers up from manual NOx emissions reporting, saving time and money, while yielding more accurate and consistent information. Vessels operating in Norwegian waters must reconcile NOx emissions data against a record of the type/location of offshore work done and ports called to establish their obligations under Norway’s NOx tax scheme.

Richard Goudbeek, technical sales manager, digital at Inmarsat Maritime, said “Data by itself is not useful unless it is processed to obtain information. Data processing involves analysing data and reasoning to gain insight and turn the results into fact-based decision-making. The Fleet Data end-user API allows Maersk to extract maximum value from available data and share it with OEMs and third parties like VPS. This collaboration is pivotal in developing actionable insights and advancing decarbonization strategies within the industry.”

Maersk Supply Service has been a long-standing Inmarsat customer, dating back to its fleet-wide implementation of Fleet Xpress in 2017.