Damen EcoLiner efficiency
The 110m EcoLiner was developed to combine conventional, proven engineering with sustainable innovations, including the world’s first installations of the ACES Air-Lubricated Hull, a gas-electrical shaft propulsion system and one of the first Van der Velden® FLEX Tunnel installations.
Simon Provoost, product director, inland waterway transport, Damen Shipyards, said: “After successfully testing at MARIN, we can now complete the build in the Netherlands and we’re talking with a number of interested parties. Fuel accounts for a very large proportion of inland shipping costs, so if operators can save 20% or more, that generates a lot of interest.”
He continued: “Every part of the EcoLiner has been designed to reduce fuel consumption. That, combined with low-emission LNG instead of marine diesel, makes the EcoLiner easily the greenest inland shipping vessel in Europe.”
The European Union co-financed the project from the Trans-European Transport Network Programme to the tune of €1.1m as part of the “LNG Masterplan for Rhine-Main-Danube” project.
The Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ADN-UNECE) has approved the gas-powered design, meaning the vessel can travel on all international inland waterways.
Delivery of the first EcoLiner is scheduled for summer 2015 and it will be delivered as a tanker. But being of modular design it can be built to transport any commodity, including containers and dry bulk.
