Rendition of Rolls Royce’s energy management system. Photo: Rolls Royce.

Inmarsat and Rolls-Royce have signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) to have the option to make the Rolls-Royce Energy Management system available via Inmarsat Maritime’s Fleet Xpress high-speed broadband service to reduce energy consumption and support environmental compliance. With data collected from a multitude of ship control systems and equipment sensors, Energy Management 2.0 also benchmarks efficiency against historical performance.

Vessels equipped with Rolls-Royce Energy Management software can operate within the Inmarsat Certified Application Provider (CAP) program, connected via Fleet Xpress and hosted on the Inmarsat Gateway platform; and are then able to maximize their efficiency in a way that is constantly verifiable and compliant with European Union (EU) Monitoring Reporting and Verification and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan.

Application-triggered bandwidth usage allows end-users to choose whether to dedicate part of their bandwidth allocation to specific vessel efficiency measures, or for the app itself to trigger bandwidth dynamically by the hour.

“Monitoring ship fuel consumption and emissions is required by law in some areas and is also increasingly used in vessel selection criteria by charterers. Our Energy Management software quantifies the effects of optimizing operational efficiency on costs and the true impact of enhancements as they are phased in. Fleet Xpress always-on connectivity and the potential for application-triggered bandwidth mean that data can be logged in real time,” said Marco Camporeale, Rolls-Royce vice president of intelligent asset management solutions.

The arrangement could provide a template for other vendors seeking to exploit the potential of Fleet Xpress, which has already attracted commitment from more than 10,000 commercial ships since its launch last year, according to Inmarsat.