Environmental Impact of Some Retrofit Options Applied to an Inland Vessel

Abstract

The project MoVe IT! (www.moveit-fp7.eu), funded by the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union, aims at a modernisation of inland waterway vessels with focus on retrofitting of existing vessels and technology transfer from new buildings and other transport modes. The topics of the project refer to the improvement of energy efficiency and environmental behaviour of inland waterway vessels, as well as the implementation of alternative energy sources to gasoil.
Environmental assessment of various retrofit options is one major objective of the MoVe IT! project. The analysis is carried out for five vessels, comprising a container vessel, three pushers and a motor cargo vessel being operated together with a lighter. In this paper only the analysis of this last vessel is presented. The effects of the different retrofit solutions to be applied in this vessel are taken into account by the resulting reduction of the fuel consumption or directly the respective emissions in per cent. To obtain a wider picture, the emissions referred to tkm are compared with the ones of road transport carried out with trucks complying with emissions standards EURO III up to Euro VI, as well as the East European emission standard (EE).