Damen Pioneers Mobile Ballast Water Treatment

Damen Pioneers Mobile Ballast Water Treatment:Fleet owners and ports to benefit from Damen in-house tech & retrofit expertiseDamen Shipyards Group is set to unveil a pioneering new mobile ballast water treatment (BWT)unit at the Posidonia exhibition in Athens next week. The new in-house technology bolstersDamen's Ballast Water Center of Excellence, which advises fleet managers on total BWTsolutions for retrofits and newbuilds worldwide.

Developed in-house, the fully containerized, mobile Damen InvaSave BWT unit provides ship ownerswith a cost-effective alternative to retrofitting fixed BWT systems. Damen has also developed the world'sfirst mobile treatment vessel to operate in ports and support ship deballasting operations. The firstof these customized Damen barges, fitted with Damen InvaSave units, is now under construction forservice in the Dutch ports of Eemshaven and Delfzijl. One of the most important (financial) partners inthis project is the ‘Waddenfonds', the organization focusing on the preservation of the ‘Waddensea',which is listed as a protected UNESCO world heritage site.

Damen mobile BWT units

Gert Jan Oude Egberink, Damen Manager Ballast Water Treatment, comments: "We have been lookinginto what we can do to help our customers regarding ballast water treatment and finding alternativesfor those owners that may not want to retrofit a ballast water treatment system, perhaps because theirships operate on fixed routes or their ships are too old and make the investment in a system prohibitivelyexpensive. Ports may also need to provide back-up, in case a ship's onboard treatment systems fail."

As well as avoiding considerable retrofit investments, the mobile solution means ballast water only needstreating at the point of discharge, in contrast to fixed onboard BWT installations that also need to treatballast water at intake. Damen can deliver the system as a separate mobile container, which can be puton board or moved around the port on a truck. Each Damen InvaSave container unit handles 300 m3/h - it's easy to scale up if required by using multiple container units. The system has been successfullytested in the challenging waters of the Wadden Sea and the IJsselmeer in the Netherlands and iscurrently being certified by the Dutch Flag State.

"This is all in-house technology and is very simple to use - essentially it is a plug & play system inone container," Mr Oude Egberink continues. "Vessels only need to have a deck connection. Usingthis mobile treatment unit, owners and operators will be fully compliant with both the IMO and USregulations."

Damen one-stop-shop

In addition to its own mobile BWT system, Damen can also advise on type-approved BWT systems foronboard retrofitting, as well as retrofit engineering and installation. Damen Shiprepair & Conversion has16 repair and conversion yard facilities, with 40 dry docks worldwide. Damen can do the onboard survey,3D scans, onsite surveying and pre-engineering, the integration plan, purchasing, manufacture thepiping, make all the preparations, do the installation and commissioning, carry out the trials, plus providetraining and supply the BW management plan.

"If vessels are coming in for their special survey when the system has to be installed, we can do boththings at once, providing a turnkey solution," Mr Oude Egberink says. "We can install Damen selectedtechnology or our customer's choice of unit at a Damen or a non-Damen yard or afloat. I think there isno other company that has this one-stop-shop, with both the yard and engineering capacity and a vastknowledge of shipbuilding. We can be the BWT total solution provider and our customers have a trustedpartner and peace of mind."

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Taxonomy

• Modelling
• Ballast Water