Page 43: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (April 2024)

“The industry is an ecosystem which includes owners, managers, mariners, shipyards, equipment makers, designers, research institutes and class societies: all of them are crucial,” – Eero Lehtovaara,

Head of Regulatory & Public

Affairs, ABB Marine & Ports

All images courtesy ABB Marine and Ports providers on developing standards and print and accelerate the commercialized tection. The work would also demand a regulations to help digitalization nurture scaling-up of solutions. review of SOLAS formulations for the decarbonization. New energy saving devices, alterna- design, planning and testing of ships, “I don't say that crews must be soft- tive fuels, carbon capture, batteries and and a regulatory framework which takes ware engineers, but there is no going fuel cell power will all provide critical account of the ‘graceful deterioration’ of back: there has to be both a systematic pathways to maritime decarbonization, electronic systems.

approach to understanding digital sys- Lehtovaara stresses. “But there is not The ‘ship as system’ approach would tems and how they ? t together across going to be one solution that meets ev- be in? uential if considered as part of the shipping, and to the vetting of the sys- ery objective, given the diversity of ship IMO’s review of its formulation of the tems in service.” types, ship ages, routes and services.” CII, or as EU standards evolve to sup-

What is also already known is that all port FuelEU maritime requirements to

Integrated for Sustainability the solutions proposed to advance mari- have 90 percent of pier sides in ports

A member of technical committees time decarbonization – from CII to emis- to deliver power from shore by 2030, with leading class societies, Lehtovaara sions trading – are optimized by formaliz- Lehtovaara suggests.

started the International Council on ing solutions for data sharing. Lehtovaara “As [IMO Secretary General] Arsenio

Combustion Engines (CIMAC) Indus- says regulators should reconceive the Dominguez said recently, regulators try strategy Group Digitalization and, ship as a system to re? ect this reality. have come to realize that that they were since the summer of 2024 has been a “Perhaps this sounds like a small thing. optimistic with the CII. Its impact so far board member focusing on maritime It changes everything,” says Lehtovaara. has been to cut the average speed of the digitalization. He is the current chair Understanding the ship as a system is ? eet by almost one knot. This means of One Sea - the association of autono- a point of departure for regulating the ships in service are less ef? cient and, mous ship technology frontrunners and interface between the human in the loop globally, it’s been the same as reducing he also chairs the Waterborne Technol- and digitalized maritime technology. ship capacity substantially.

ogy Platform, which provides policy “One response might be to build more

Technology as Tool guidance to the European Commission ships, but even a shameless opportunist on maritime R&D. With industry in- “Technology should be helping to would acknowledge that this defeats the vestments in zero-emission waterborne make the lives of seafarers easier, as entire objective of the CII regulation.” transport R&D per year for the period well as making ships operate more ef? - A better response would involve im- 2021 – 2030 amounting to €3.3 billion, ciently. But the advisory products which proving understanding of the relation- the EU is adding €530 million through support better decision-making aren’t ships of the world’s population, GDP the Horizon Europe program. governed by speci? c rules or third-party and trade, and the global shipping in-

In November-December 2023, approvals that examine how they affect dustry needed to support them.

Lehtovaara also represented the mari- the ship as system.” Where shipping’s contribution to ‘car- time industry as part of the Finnish Lehtovaara says the model for data bon intensity’ is concerned, this would delegation at COP28 in Dubai. His collaboration between engine and oth- need to include restraint on any haste to participation included a "Transition in er systems would include an outline reform CII until a better understanding

Transportation" panel session covering of standards for secure data exchange, of the impact of changing vessel speeds how to reduce shipping’s carbon foot- vendor neutrality and data property pro- is established. www.marinelink.com 43

MR #4 (34-44).indd 43 4/5/2024 8:53:41 AM