Green ships to blue seas

Marine is becoming sustainable at a fast pace. For ship design specialist Deltamarin this is excellent news.

During the past five years ship design and engineering company Deltamarin has invested heavily in R&D projects covering energy efficiency and environmental issues in shipbuilding.

“For example, with fuels the shift is clear: Today 90 percent of the vessel concepts we design are based on alternative fuels, whereas five years ago the number was only 10 percent”, CEO Janne Uotila says.

For Deltamarin, sustainability has been a leading principle for three decades, and the company is one of the major ship designers within the industry. Altogether Deltamarin has 400 experts in Finland, Poland, China and Croatia. At the moment over 50 vessels of their design are being built in shipyards around the world, and 30–40 concepts from passenger ships to cargo vessels are created
yearly.

Building ships that are more energy efficient and that run on renewable energy is the way for the industry to reach its goals of cutting carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050, which is the target of the International Maritime Organization.

“In addition to international regulation, there is a growing demand from the end customers for a sustainable supply chain, and this is where they rely on our expertise. We stay with our clients from the concept design to the shipyard and even beyond”, Uotila says.

An average lifespan of a ship is 20–40 years. Therefore, the designers need to think ahead and take into account future trends
and regulations. One of the main questions is fuel.

“Even if the ships now mostly run on LNG, in coming years they could be using hydrogen, ammonia or methanol. We must be technologically prepared for that already. Also wind and solar power will have an important supporting role”, Department Manager
of Concept Design Markus Vauhkonen describes.

All in all, from the ship designer’s point of view, we live in an exciting time.

“Green transition offers new, interesting job opportunities also in our field”, Uotila sees.

“All the designs are different, but most of them begin basically with a white paper, and I’m really proud of how our team can help
turn that into a modern ship,” Vauhkonen sums.