Assessing the impact of alternative fuel adoption on decarbonization goals across diverse vessel classes in the maritime industry

The maritime industry faces a critical challenge in reducing carbon emissions, necessitating a shift towards alternative fuels to facilitate an efficient, safe, and sustainable transition to zero-carbon marine fuels. Within this context, this paper seeks to address several key questions regarding the potential of on-board energy systems to provide ship power with net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. This is achieved by assessing the readiness of the most promising zero-carbon fuels and associated technologies, as well as evaluating available ship-board solutions and the required land-based infrastructures. To accomplish these objectives, this paper explores the potential impact of adopting alternative fuels across a variety of ships, including passenger liners, cargo ships, and others, while also considering future fuel availability. The analysis considers the variability of on-board loads and the interaction between different energy system configurations and fuels, including biofuels and e-fuels. Exploiting dynamic energy simulation techniques and several proprietary ship-plant simulation models, the study assesses how the use of alternative fuels could influence energy performance and emissions across various vessel classes, as measured by established key performance indicators (KPIs) and indexes. The findings of the study offer guidance for the phased implementation of zero-carbon fuels in the short, medium, and long term, providing valuable insights into the feasibility and consequences of adopting alternative fuels to achieve decarbonization objectives within the maritime sector.