Case Study: Digitally optimized sailing for a cleaner shipping industry 

Evidence of this is abundant. Building on a long history with Shell that includes the world’s first product tanker to be fitted with wind propulsion (registering fuel and emissions savings of 8.2%¹ in its first year), Norsepower expanded its agreement with Northern Lights last year. A Joint Venture between Shell, Equinor and TotalEnergies, Northern Lights is developing the world’s first open-source CO₂ transport and storage infrastructure, and its fleet will run three 7,500m LCO₂ vessels fitted with Norsepower Rotor Sails™.

“Northern Lights is just one example of the many customers we’re seeing come back to us with repeat orders,” Peltomaa continued. Other notable examples include Brazilian mining giant Vale, which followed up its 2021 commission of five tilting NPRS™ for a 325,000 deadweight ton bulk carrier, with a new agreement to retrofit two sails on a 200,000-ton vessel.

And scale is no challenge. Two 35m tall x 5m wide tilting sails were installed on Sea-Cargo’s SC Connector, turning the huge ship into Norway’s largest sailing vessel². Norsepower also signed its largest single wind propulsion order to date with Louis Dreyfus Armateurs SAS, an agreement that will see 18 NPRS™ installed across a new Transatlantic fleet chartered to Airbus. “I have absolutely no doubt that this technology is working” SC Connector’s Captain reflected, with results showing typical savings of 20 – 25%, and even up to 70%³ in good conditions on his vessel.

Digital Depths

Norsepower’s technological maturity and customer demand are fuelling new CEO Heikki Pöntynen’s focus on growth. Having previously held senior maritime roles in Finland, China, Hong Kong and the USA, and been a Norsepower Board member, Pöntynen assumed the helm earlier this year. His ambition to tangibly reduce emissions from global shipping is buoyed by rotor sail performance, and crucially, the supporting software. “The AI is our differentiator. The team has developed a sentient, data-based control system that understands how to manage sails exactly to optimally utilize the available wind,” he explains.

The world-first Norsepower Sentient Control™ tool utilizes a digital twin of a vessel and its meteorological environment that can offer considerable additional savings. It automatically controls each sail, optimizing efficiency by managing the complex aerodynamic interactions between the sails and hydrodynamic behaviour of the vessel.

The information is helping on land, too. “With all the test and performance data we’ve gathered over the last decade, we can accurately predict the savings customers can expect for any vessel – including working from blueprints on ships that have yet to be built,” Pöntynen continues. Norsepower’s partnership with maritime software and data services provider NAPA, further extends the customer offering to include route optimization. By integrating predicted weather conditions, design profiles of each vessel and operating requirement data, the software adjusts routes to make the most of prevailing winds, optimizing fuel and emissions savings.

With such accurate performance simulation data and proven onboard results, the challenge for Norsepower will be simply keeping up with demand – particularly as the regulatory environment puts more pressure on global shipping to reduce emissions and meet targets.