Monitoring For MRV

By Ian Cameron

Rolls-Royce has extended its marine Energy Management solutions with a cloud-based fuel consumption and carbon dioxide monitoring module to help shipowners meet the European Union’s Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) regulation.

With the new module installed as an add-on solution to the Rolls-Royce Energy Management System launched in May, data can be sent automatically from the ship to the cloud, where information and reports can be accessed and downloaded from anywhere with an internet connection. The software also validates incoming data, the company said.

The collection and reporting of voyage data will become a mandatory requirement from Jan. 1, 2018, when owners of vessels over 5000 gross tonnes calling at European Union ports will have to monitor, report and verify their fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.

“The Energy Management EU-MRV module allows for automated gathering and reporting of fuel consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and other relevant data required of the new regulation,” said Bjørn Kåre Myskja, Rolls-Royce, UX/developer engineer, Digital & Systems. “With shipowners able to constantly track accurate fuel consumption and emissions data via the Rolls-Royce Energy Management web portal, they can reduce fuel costs and mitigate against incompliance and any financial penalties imposed by member states. More accurate data delivers greater costs savings.”

In addition to data collection simplicity, a focus during the software development phase was data protection, said Rolls-Royce. “System security and integrity has been increased four-fold, with state-of-the-art encryption technologies, a two-step verification process and a 24/7 security center,” said Eivind Vinje, Rolls-Royce, Technical Product manager – Energy Management. “We also invited a number of third-party cyber security experts to hack into the system, but all failed to breach the protocols or find any weak spots.”

While the Energy Management EU-MRV Module can be an invaluable tool for those with operations in the European Union, the system is future-proofed to meet anticipated global requirements, Rolls-Royce said. China has similar reporting mechanisms in place, with the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) data collection requirements taking effect in January of 2019. This requires the collection of fuel consumption data per fuel type, but not CO2 emissions directly, the company said.

The software has been verified by the Norway-accredited MRV verification organization Ecoxy AS, which also cooperated in the development of the system to ensure its compliance with all aspects of the EU MRV regulation as well as to meet customer requirements for a solution capable of substantially reducing manual data inputs.

Since its market introduction earlier this year, Rolls-Royce said its Energy Management System has received its first commercial success with a contract for two Nor Lines vessels.