MariGreen

The maritime economy in the German-Dutch border region faces special challenges with regard to ecological and environmental developments, but also economic efficiency.

Against this background, a consortium of more than 50 companies and knowledge institutions from the region is developing solutions in 12 innovation projects within the Interreg Va project MariGreen for

  • The strengthening of the maritime economy
  • The development of a "greener" shipping and
  • The promotion of maritime networking

By developing concrete technological and logistical innovations that made shipping more efficient and thus at the same time more environmentally friendly, economical and safe, the cross-border maritime economy is to be prepared for the future requirements of environmental protection, climate protection and resource and energy efficiency in shipping.

Further information on the overall project can be found at www.mariko-leer.de/projekte/marigreen/.
The Department of Maritime Studies is also intensively involved in the project. You can find more information here.

 

The Institute of Logistics is focusing on two of the subprojects:

The aim of the project is to create a concept that is as practicable as possible and that enables an optimal trim condition in terms of fuel reduction. This concept should contain ballasting conditions for all "reasonable" loading conditions, which lead to a minimum fuel consumption.

The practicability of the system is a particular challenge, so that acceptance and use by the crew can be guaranteed. In addition, boundary conditions, such as sufficient stability of the ship or the avoidance of stern immersion, are to be taken into account.

In the course of the subsequent validation of the concept in the course of measurement runs, it will also be investigated whether the data obtained can also be used to predict the roughness caused by fouling on the outer skin. Fouling increases fuel consumption. Here, a cleaning of the outer skin has to be planned and predicted in a reasonable way.

Likewise, performance losses on the propeller are to be expected if it has acquired a surface that is too rough due to cavitation and fouling. Here, acoustics will be used to investigate on a laboratory model whether fouling on the propeller surface can be acoustically integrated into a prognosis model for propeller treatment in a meaningful way.

The results of these investigations are to be combined in a concept for condition-based maintenance of the ship as a system as a whole, in order to enable sustainable, safe and environmentally friendly ship operation that is advantageous for all parties.

This project deals with the development, simulation and optimization of an innovative, "green" alternative for the transport of liquid food within Europe. For this purpose, a simulation software is developed and made marketable, which can be used for the analysis of multimodal, complex logistics problems considering different criteria (multi-objective).

The challenge here is to prove the functionality of the tool through a case study - in this case the transport of liquid foodstuffs in Europe.

For the European market, liquid foodstuffs are delivered in bulk by ocean-going vessels to central storage locations (Antwerp, Ghent and Rotterdam).

The transport through Europe is mainly done by tankers, which are used to distribute the liquid food products in the respective regions in Europe. This results in high fuel and freight costs, among other things. The large fuel requirement also results in high CO2 emissions.

Within the scope of the project, alternative supply chain concepts - for example, pre-distribution by coasters, onward transport by rail and final delivery by tanker trucks - are to be developed and analyzed and optimized with the help of simulation software with regard to the expected market potential.

The MariGreen project is co-financed within the framework of the INTERREG V A program Germany-Nederland with funds from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs (Ministerie van Economische Zaken), the Lower Saxony Ministry of Economic Affairs, Employment and Transport as well as the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Energy, Industry, SMEs and Trade and the provinces of Drenthe, Flevoland, Friesland, Gelderland, Groningen, Noord-Brabant and Overijssel. It is accompanied by the INTERREG program management at the Ems Dollart Region (EDR).