BlueRoute, an application developed by Dutch research agency Marin, has been expanded following the first results of the WiSP2 project, which aims to identify the amount of fuel savings shipowners can achieve using wind assistance.
Project manager of WiSP2 Patrick Hooijmans said: “The climate benefits of wind-assisted ship propulsion have long been ignored. The entire shipping industry is forced to deal with CO2 emission reduction, due to new rules and regulations (EEXI and CII) as from 2023. One way to do so is using wind propulsion. Hence the WiSP2 Joint industry project was started focussing on developing performance prediction methods for wind-assisted ships.”
As part of its earlier research into wind propulsion, Marin developed the prototype of the application BlueRoute, a public cloud based web service. In BlueRoute it is possible to choose a route anywhere on the globe for a vessel equipped with assisting wind systems. The power performance and CO2 emission reduction are calculated using detailed wind statistics for the specified area. As part of the latest expansion of BlueRoute, in addition to the standard available vessel, participants in the project can use a vessel of their own design and configuration.
