Waste heat recovery systems for container ships

Peter Brotherhood, who specialise in the design and manufacture of steam turbines, has delivered six 6 MW turbo-compound systems to Odense Steel Shipyard in Denmark, for waste heat recovery systems

Peter Brotherhood, who specialise in the design and manufacture of steam turbines, has delivered six 6 MW turbo-compound systems to Odense Steel Shipyard in Denmark.

It completes the first phase of several systems ordered by the shipyard.

Each turbo-compound system will be installed on-board a large container ship.

They will be used to convert energy in the exhaust gases from the main propulsion, slow speed diesel engine into electrical power for use on-board the ship.

The turbo-compound system consists of a 5.25 MW Peter Brotherhood steam turbine, a 2.25 MW Mitsubishi power turbine, two gearboxes and a 6 MW Siemens generator - all on a combined baseframe.

An electronic governor and PLC based control system has also been supplied to regulate the start up, shut down and running modes over the full range of the main engine duties.

This first phase of delivery was completed between December 2004 and December 2005 following placement of the order in September 2003.

Work has already started on the manufacture of the second phase of machines, which will be delivered during 2006 and 2007.

Peter Brotherhood supplied a number of similar machines via Odense to Maersk Line, between 1987 and 1991.

These turbines have proved to be extremely reliable with over 1.5 million running hours at over 99 per cent availability.

This was an important factor in helping Peter Brotherhood to secure this latest series of orders.

Colin Lake, regional sales manager for steam turbines, said: "We have been awarded contracts from Odense Steel Shipyard to deliver turbo-compound systems over a three year period.

The turbo-compound systems have proved to be the right choice of equipment due to the relatively short pay back period and the efficiency of the system.

In most cases, the system generates significant savings on the fuel consumption of the main engine, depending on the operating regime of the ship.

A similar saving is therefore made on the emissions in terms of both NOx, SOx and CO2 from the exhaust of the main engine to atmosphere via the ship's stack.

There are many pressures on the marine industry to be seen to be environmentally-friendly ahead of impending legislation on ship engine / stack emissions," continued Colin.

"Some customers of the ship owners are already asking for clear evidence of the environmental policies of their shippers and this system sustains and reflects the high priority on environmental considerations that Maersk Line has in managing its ships".

Peter Brotherhood designs and manufactures steam turbines and turbo-generator sets within the range of 1 to 40 MW.

The company specialises in supplying machines for onshore and offshore applications including power generation applications, waste-to-energy plants, container ships and FPSO vessels.

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