A Study of the Performance of Ship Diesel-Electric Propulsion Systems From an Environmental, Energy Efficiency, and Economic Perspective

Climate change and air pollution that are enormously impacted by ship emissions have become an intriguing issue, drawing consideration from the shipping industry. The ship’s propulsion system is the main contributor to energy efficiency and ship emissions. This research paper presents a solution to this issue through propelling the ship by using a diesel-electric propulsion system instead of the conventional one. As a case study, a passenger ship is investigated. The results showed that the proposed electric propulsion system has lower emission rates than the conventional one by 10%, 21%, and 88% for Carbon dioxide, Nitrogen oxides and Sulfur dioxide emissions, respectively. From an energy efficiency point of view, the diesel-electric propulsion system enhances the energy efficiency and complies with the required International Maritime Organization (IMO) values, as actual energy efficiency is about 66%, 70%, 83%, and 95% of the required IMO values at baseline, Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3, respectively. From the economic point of view, the annual costs are $2.5 and $3.05 million for both diesel-electric and conventional propulsion systems, respectively. This shows that the annual cost of the diesel-electric option is less than that of the conventional by 22%.