Yara Marine Technologies, which specializes in the development and implementation of emissions reduction technologies in the maritime industry, has acquired Lean Marine, a company that develops automated fuel-saving, performance management and reporting solutions for vessels.
Lean Marine offers a combination of direct, real-time fuel optimization and data analysis over time, which it claims improves vessel operational efficiency, with potential fuel consumption and CO2 emission savings of up to 25%.
Its FuelOpt system optimizes a vessel’s propulsion system in real time based on the commands from the bridge, enabling automated control of vessel speed and fuel consumption, thereby avoiding fuel overconsumption. Additionally, on vessels with controllable pitch propellers, FuelOpt acts as a dynamic tuning system that controls the propeller’s pitch and RPM automatically to produce the most amount of thrust with the least amount of power. Its second main product, Fleet Analytics, turns the vessel’s data into knowledge to improve decision-making and achieve operational excellence
Mikael Laurin, CTO at Lean Marine, explained, “Yara Marine Technologies has consistently demonstrated its ability and dedication at providing commercial shipping operators with new technologies that reduce maritime emissions, and it has the capacity to scale and implement new solutions quickly. We strive toward the same goal – a greener maritime industry – and that made us a natural match. We are now ready to move our solutions into the next phase of rapid expansion, in a global market, where the frontrunners will show the way.”
Lean Marine will continue to offer FuelOpt and Fleet Analytics as part of Yara Marine’s portfolio of green technologies for the maritime industry, and these offerings will be backed by Yara Marine’s global service and support infrastructure.
Thomas Koniordos, Yara Marine Technologies CEO, added, “The purpose of our work is to make this industry greener, and we do that by continuously introducing new solutions. Lean Marine’s innovative vessel efficiency technologies are our next important step on that journey. We spent over a year analyzing dozens of system providers, but no one comes close to what we found at Lean Marine. The savings offered by its technologies made our engineers’ hearts skip a beat. In addition, its experience in propulsion control systems, customized marine engineering and hydrodynamics really put fast-moving digital developments into good use.
“We already see several interesting synergies between us. For instance, the integration of wind-assisted propulsion and conventional propulsion systems requires a smart solution – one that is able to dynamically adjust engine power, pitch propeller and route for real-time optimization of fuel efficiency. This is a very interesting arena now that Yara Marine is bringing WindWings to the market,” Laurin concluded.