Environmental-Economic Analysis for Decarbonising Ferries Fleets

Abstract

Several countries heavily depend on their domestic ferries, the decarbonisation of which are required following the prevailing and forthcoming international and national carbon reduction targets. This study aims to conduct an environmental-economic analysis to identify the impact of three decarbonisation measures, specifically, hybridisation, liquified natural gas (LNG) and methanol use, for two ferries of different size of a developing country fleet. The study is based on several methodological steps including the selection of key performance indicators (KPIs), the pre-processing of acquired data to identify representative operating profiles, the environmental and economic KPIs calculation, as well as the comparative appraisal of the investigated measures. The required investments for decarbonising the whole domestic fleet of a case country are subsequently estimated and discussed. All the three investigated measures have the potential to reduce CO2 emissions, however, not beyond the IMO 2030 carbon emissions reduction target. This study provides insights to the involved stakeholders for supporting their decisions pertinent to the domestic ferries sector decarbonisation.