As the GRENDEL project advances also Activity 4.1 – Individual advanced vessel concepts & energy efficient navigation – is stepping up the pace. Our partners involved in this Activity are:

• Danubia Kreuzfahrten GmbH from Austria who operates a fleet of river cruise vessels on the European waterways with special focus on Danube,
• FLUVIUS Kft. from Hungary who operates a number of motor cargo vessels mainly on the Danube, and
• NAVROM together with SDG (Ship Design Group) from Romania – NAVROM is the operator of a considerable fleet of pushers, SDG a very experienced ship design office with a special focus on inland navigation vessels.

All of them are currently preparing technical studies with a view to exploring possibilities for improving the environmental performance of inland navigation. These concepts will be based on diligently selected “pilot” vessels so that the results of the studies can be rolled out to the respective fleets with as little need for individual adaptation as possible.

For all partners in Activity 4.1 considerations on reducing engine exhaust emissions play a major role and they will therefore investigate technical options for the different types of vessels ranging from replacing the old engines with new engines of NRMM Stage V type certification or diesel-electric propulsion using Euro 6 truck engines as well as retrofitting existing engines with exhaust after treatment systems. NAVROM and SDG have already completed a first draft report on the conceptual design for the retrofitting of 4 river pushers, with four different types of propulsion engines.

Every partner in addition will address issues which are very special for their respective field of operation.

River cruising recently received some rather "unpleasant press coverage" in particular in Germany and Austria concerning noise emissions at berths and sewage treatment, so it is a very fortunate coincidence that the studies conducted by Danubia Kreuzfahrten will explore options to refit the waste-water treatment plants and to enhance their operating cycles with the objective to outperform current statutory requirements on the one hand and to investigate possibilities for structural improvements of their vessels in order to improve the overall noise and vibrations characteristics with special focus on improvement of working conditions.

FLUVIUS is going to evaluate the benefits of installing photovoltaic solar panels on their vessels in order to cover at least parts of the electric energy needs from renewable sources. Furthermore, FLUVIUS also will look into possible hydrodynamic improvements for one of their motor cargo vessels to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 Footprint.

Last but not least NAVROM and SDG are going to elaborate the conceptual design for a new generation of pushers with full LNG propulsion. They can rely on the experience SDG already gained with the design of a dual-fuel pusher (diesel and LNG) and will analyse aspects such as autonomy range, main dimensions in particular with regard to navigational restrictions (e.g. fairway depth, air-draught etc.) and challenges of LNG storage.