Energy Efficiency of Offshore Support Vessels

Abstract

The International Maritime Organization has brought forward the need to reduce CO2 emissions from ships. There have been many deliberations in this regard; however, there is an absence of specific guidelines to monitor emissions in offshore support vessels. This study attempts to prioritize the various factors affecting the operational energy efficiency of these vessels. The objective of this study is to rank the factors and sub-factors based on feedback from various stakeholders. Three major factors namely Managerial, functional and Infrastructural and their respective sub factors were considered for the study. In total, seventeen sub-factors were taken for the study and feedback from twenty-two stakeholders were obtained. The Best worst method, which is an MCDM approach, is deployed to rank these factors based on feedback from various stakeholders. Infrastructure factors emerge as the leading factors among the three major factors: vessel performance monitoring, digitalized fleet management, and regulatory compliance. The study throws light for vessel operators to focus on infrastructure sub-factors for better energy efficiency in offshore vessels.