With the new NRMM Stage V emissions standards soon coming into effect, the Inland Waterway Transports (IWT) sector needs to significantly improve its overall sustainability. LNG can play a key role in meeting this challenge. Adopting LNG as transport fuel allows the sector to substantially improve its environmental performance, since LNG is far cleaner than diesel fuel. In addition, the adoption of LNG could significantly reduce overall fuel costs, which form the sector’s main factor.

The ‘Breakthrough LNG Deployment in Inland Waterway Transport’ consortium supports the large-scale adoption of LNG as a transport fuel in the sector. It works to achieve this goal via the following activities:

• Research focussing on the standardisation and type approval of the most common components and figurations, resulting in an absolute reduction of the associated investment costs.
• Application of innovative financial arrangements for corporate client relationships, to avoid the need for up-front capital investments by ship-owners.
• Detailing of a robust business case.
• Research to identify the best locations for LNG bunkering stations.

Moreover, the consortium will organise pilot projects with six vessels and ship-owners for the purpose of validating standardised and type approved configurations. In addition, plans outline the development of four bunkering stations for LNG, to create confidence in the short-term availability of the required fuel infrastructure.

LNG presents three important advantages compared to conventional diesel fuel:

• LNG makes it possible to meet the stringent emission standard NRMM Stage V that will shortly be coming into effect. Typical emission reductions associated with LNG are:
– NOx: 70% reduction compared to CCNR-2.
– PM: 95% reduction compared to CCNR-2.
– CO₂: 10% reduction compared to diesel fuel.

• LNG offers a clear price advantage compared to diesel fuel.

• LNG presents an opportunity to satisfy the growing demand for cleaner transport.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme.

Source

https://lngbinnenvaart.eu/