Investigation of the Effect of Anti-fouling Systems on Meeting Energy Efficiency Regulations

Abstract

The operational efficiency of marine vessels should be kept as high as possible to achieve sustainable development goals in the maritime field. However, a lot of factors such as resistance components reduce the operational efficiency of the ship. Frictional resistance is the biggest resistance component for the power needed on ships and its coefficient increases due to the biofouling as long as the ship interacts with seawater. The increased total resistance of the ship causes extra power needed and excessive fuel consumption to reach service speed. The increase in both fuel consumption and power will create an obstacle to meeting the EEXI and CII reference values which became mandatory after January 1, 2023. That’s why the utilization of effective anti-fouling systems is quite critical in maritime applications. The purpose of this study is to reveal anti-fouling systems’ effect on EEXI, CII, and CII ratings by utilization of the container ship operated in liner shipping. That’s why, high, medium, and low effective anti-fouling system scenarios have been created since the effect of each anti-fouling will not be the same on the container ship. According to the results, the required EEXI and CII reference values will have been met respectively when the effect of ship biofouling is ignored. However, the reduction ratios and biofouling effect have created quite a challenge in meeting EEXI and CII in the following years. Although the required EEXI value has been met for 2024 and 2025 by the high-effective anti-fouling system and reference value has not been met by the low-effective anti-fouling system in the following years. Any anti-fouling system utilized in this paper won’t be sufficient to meet the reference value at the end of 2023 because attained CII of the container ship is very close to the reference value of CII in 2023. The CII rating of the container ship will have been at C level until the end of 2026 when the biofouling effect is ignored. However, it decreased to D and E levels in the following two years depending on the best and worst scenarios. This study will be a valuable resource for scientists, researchers, experts, and maritime stakeholders who want to investigate the effect of EEXI, CII, and CII rating of antifouling systems.