The Allure of the Seas had 5 engines on and was cruising at simply over 21 knots on the way in which to Cozumel, Mexico, on its inaugural departure from Galveston, Texas, with chief engineer Martin Atanasov maintaining a tally of power consumption and rather more.
Atanasov stated the vast majority of the resort load was being consumed by the air-conditioning alone.
“It is constant. We have so many galleys, ovens and hot plates. Just to cool her down, right now we are running three chillers and they are consuming three megawatts to get the ship to a normal temperature,” he stated.
On prime of that, the 5 engines had been driving the large pods, with a sixth engine offline.
The 2010-built Allure has a configuration of three 16-cylinder engines and three smaller 12-cylinder engines..
“The benefit of pods is you lose less electricity than the conventional propulsion system,” stated Atanasov, noting that with all six engines working, the ship had hit slightly below 24 knots in its final set of sea trials following a fast 2020 drydock in Cadiz.
“We have divers on a regular basis who clean the hull,” Atanasov advised Cruise Industry News. “The company is doing trials with new types of hull paint. The less friction on the hull, the more efficient it is and the less energy you need to move from point A to point B.”
Other consumption reductions, he stated, might be made in propeller design and common propeller sharpening.
“We polish them quarterly and this increases the efficiency of the ship,” he stated.
Elsewhere, water used to chill the engines will get scorching and is then repurposed.
“We are using this water to heat up the water you use to shower, for example. That is waste heat recovery,” Atanasov stated. “The overall (electricity) problem is consumption. We just have huge consumption. The hotel was fully switched to LED. We are looking at everything, everything that is possible.”
From Bulgaria, Atanasov adopted within the household footsteps into maritime engineering, guided by an area academy, his grandfather and father.
Excerpt from Cruise Industry News Quarterly Magazine: Winter 2022-2023