Development of a dynamic programming method for low fuel consumption and low carbon emission from shipping

摘要

Fuel saving and low carbon emission in shipping have already become an attractive and important subject in the shipping industry driven by the increasing full oil price and considerations of reduction of green house gas emission. Global shipping consumes 200 million tons of liquid fuel, resoluble for 1.12 billion tons of CO2 emission in the world. This paper presents the development of a novel forward dynamic programming method to optimise ship’s fuel consumption with respect to safety during a voyage. The constraints are weather, sea conditions and the safety constrains defined in the IMO guidance MSC.1/Circ.1228. Compared with the traditional dynamic programming methods, the newly developed weather routing method is more accurate and practical. Simulation results from a case study have shown that the newly developed method is able to save several tons of fuel compared with that of the traditional methods for one North Atlantic voyage. As a result, it can offer much CO2 emission reduction.