Page 35: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2024)

DR. GUNNAR STIESCH, CTO, MAN ENERGY SOLUTIONS

PR R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R RO O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O OD D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D DU U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UC C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C CT T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T TI I I I I I IO O O O O O O O O O ON N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H HA A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A AL L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L LL L L L L L L L L L L L L I I I I I I I I I I IN P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P PR R R R R R R RO O O O O O O O O O O OD D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D DU U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UC C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C CT T T T T T T T T TI I I IO O O O O O O ON N N N N N N N H H H H H H H H H HA A A A A A A A A A A AL L L L L L L L LL L L L L L L L L L I I I IN N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N

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Dr. Stiesch, to begin, can you give a brief career have some sophisticated, specialized laboratories for solid biography with insights on how you came to materials, and for fuels and lubricants, labs we share for all your position as CTO of MAN ES, as well as your parts of our engineering.

current responsibilities?

I am what you could call an “engine guy”, having worked Can you put in perspective how mandates from the IMO to cut ship emissions have helped to with the technology in various functions for close to 30 years.

shape the work that you and your team do on a

I was appointed to the executive board of MAN Energy So- lutions as a CTO at the beginning of 2023, and my current daily basis?

It's absolutely crucial. The technologies are available, but function involves all responsibility for all our technology and product development activities, including both our two- and without regulations they will not be cost-competitive compared four-stroke engines, but also for our turbomachinery-related to fossil fuel technologies. The overall target has been set, but more detailed targets will have to be broken down and be decid- business. ed within IMO within the next year, coming into force in 2027.

Can you give us an overview of the department That is crucial that this time schedule is met and is not further delayed, because basically you could say it is too late already. under your guise?

Globally we have roughly 2,000 development engineers, The technologies are available, but we need regulations to in- with about 60% related to our engine business. The majority centivize investments to make the new technologies, the new are located in Europe, primarily in Germany and Denmark, fuels cost-competitive compared to fossil alternatives. Another important part is to accelerate the production of green synthetic and part of our turbomachinery business in Switzerland.

fuels. Investments in that area are also necessary and they will

Can you discuss the engine test facilities that only start if regulations require the use of those clean fuels.

you have at your disposal?

For the engines business we have eight engineering sites What kind of challenges does the broad diver- in six countries which are specialized on engines. That is in sity of potential fuel choices, particularly with an industry that's run successfully for about a hun-

Augsburg, Germany; in Copenhagen, Frederikshavn and-

Holeby, Denmark; Saint-Nazaire, France; Aurangabad, India; dred years or more on the same fuel, present to

Changzhou, China; and in Busan, South Korea. Almost all of you and your team?

The ? rst obvious challenge is to make sure that we allocate these sites have their own engine testbeds, and also compo- nent test rigs to validate our products and technologies before our resources to the right topics and the correct technologies.

As you indicated, what we see at the moment is a combination we put them on the market.

In regards to the R&D efforts, Copenhagen is our center of biofuels, methane, methanol, and ammonia. Hydrogen is for two-stroke technology, with two large research engines probably something we’ll see [more] on stationary applica- tions onshore and not so much on vessels, but the other fuels and several component test rigs, whereas Augsburg is our pri- are serious candidates, and available to a large extent today. mary center for four-stroke R&D activities, including full and

When we look into our ‘crystal ball’ we see that right now, single cylinder test engines and component test rigs. We also www.marinelink.com 35

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