HANSA 10-2020

Schiffstechnik | Ship Technology
»We try to be extremely prudent«
Clean technology company Silverstream is growing despite the Covid-19 crisis as fuel
saving technology, such as air lubrication, stays in demand. CEO Noah Silberschmidt bets
on thorough testing and transparent evaluation methods as well as artificial intelligence
Noah Silberschmidt
© Silverstream
In 2016 you won the HANSA Maritime
Innovator Award for successfully commercializing
the Silverstream air lubrication
system – how are things today?
Noah Silberschmidt: We started commercializing
our system about two years
after we did the first pilot with Shell on
an MR tanker in 2014. Then we looked
through two years of data to do in-service,
all weather conditions performance
analysis in the worst conditions in deep
draft only. The first pilot installation got
5 % fuel savings in service. Even under the
least favourable conditions we had 5.1 %
savings in all drafts and weather scenarios.
Since then, we have changed and optimized
the system, for example we use a
different design of air release units in the
flat bottom of the hull. We have also redesigned
the configuration and were able
to half the number of compressors compared
to 2016. We have an automation system
that is more intelligent, taking into account
the different operating conditions.
We are continuing to develop our technology
for example by doing software updates,
and we are working on using our
data and artificial intelligence. We are
looking at patterns in our data because
we want to be able to optimize in-service
in real time. You always have some variety
when you are on the high seas, but that
is why we want to use AI, also because we
want to find out these performance patterns
at different drafts, speeds etc.
What we have figured out after we
worked with Southampton University for
three years is that our data lends itself very
well to optimization using artificial intelligence.
On board, we have an automation
system that communicates directly with
the vessel computer and then directs orders
based on vessel speed, draft and outside
weather scenario to our compressors.
It would be very interesting to use
this data we get from different vessel classes
and weather patterns and put that into
our operation model. Ideally, we can provide
the owner with a better performance
the more in-service data we get from him.
A variety of companies have over the
last 50 years tried air lubrication without
much success. We try to be extremely
prudent in how we are doing the performance
analysis. We are typically agreeing
with clients upfront how the sea trial
procedure will take place, so that we are
afterwards 100 % in agreement of how the
tests are done. If that is not defined beforehand
then you can look at number afterwards
and pretty much get the sea trial to
fit the purpose. Instead we very much be-
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54 HANSA – International Maritime Journal 10 | 2020