Last-minute upgrade prevents downtime
While waiting to upgrade to a new generation power management system, the AHTS vessel Island Vanguard experiences problems with the old Delomatic-3 system and the crew sees the importance of having the obsolote pms retrofitted.
PMS upgrade on AHTS vessel requires minimum changes
In 2007, the anchor handling tug supply vessel (AHTS) Island Vanguard set out on her maiden voyage. Thirteen years later, the onboard power management system was outdated and needed an upgrade to stay safe and efficient.
”We needed to upgrade the power management system from Delomatic-3 to Delomatic-4 because the DM-3 system was obsolete. We wanted an upgrade that caused as little changes to our ship system as possible, so the Delomatic-4 upgrade was the right thing to do”, explains Ship Manager Roy Viggo Fjørtoft.”
Last-minute upgrade
In December, Island Offshore contacted DEIF’s solution team to order a service visit, but with the Delomatic-3 system being phased out, it was decided to upgrade to Delomatic-4. That turned out to be a wise decision because after having ordered the Delomatic-4 system, Roy Viggo and his team experienced some irregularities with the Delomatic-3 system.
“We had some issues with the old Delomatic-3 while waiting on the new system, but DEIF has been excellently solving these issues”, Roy Viggo states.
What could have led to critical and costly downtime, fortunately, was fixed without having consequences for the daily operation. Still, it could have been a critical situation as DEIF no longer stocks spare parts for the Delomatic-3 system.
“The main benefit is the need for doing as little as possible changes to the onboard system, and the new system has a dual network communication between the controllers.”
Roy Viggo Fjørtoft
Ship Manager, Island Vanguard
Retrofit expert and project manager Pau Madsen has 25 years of experience with retrofitting and upgrading vessels, and he strongly recommends all customers who have the Delomatic-3 system onboard to upgrade to the new generation system to prevent inconveniences.
“We can only give limited support to customers who have the Delomatic-3 system installed, and even though your ship is of older date, we recommend you to upgrade the system. A retrofit is always worthwhile, and the financial consequences of a breakdown exceed by far the cost for an upgrade”, Pau strikes.
Covid-19 delays upgrade
Some things can not be predicted – the outbreak of a global pandemic is one such thing. “Unfortunately, when the upgrade was planned, the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, and we had to postpone the upgrade”, says Roy Viggo.
However, as soon as the opportunity occurred, DEIF engineers did the upgrade. The Delomatic-4 fits the Delomatic-3 system’s place in the switchboard panel and most of the existing wirings and protocols could be reused. According to the fleet manager, easy replacement is one of the best things about the Delomatic-4 system. “The main benefit is the need for doing as little as possible changes to the onboard system, and the new system has a dual network communication between the controllers.”
It was essential for Island Offshore to have a redundant system to meet the contractual agreements. With its Dual ARCnet bus communication lines for redundancy, Delomatic-4 fully meets the demands for dynamic positioning operation.
Besides the Delomatic-4 it was also decided to upgrade AC protections with marine approved DEIF MVR medium voltage relays.
The Delomatic-4 installation was performed by DEIF’s project engineers Lars Bak-Pedersen and Pau Madsen in 12 days at Hareid, Norway. Everything went as planned so now the AHTS vessel is future-proof and safe for many years to come, and Roy Viggo is a happy ship manager who is content with both the system and the cooperation with DEIF.
“The experience has only been positive, and the project manager and service engineers have done an excellent job. Our onboard crew has given positive feedback on the upgrade and the service engineers that attended the vessel. From we ordered the system, DEIF has been a pleasure working with and has done the upgrade as we expected,” Roy Viggo Fjørtoft concludes.
Integrated systems DM-4 marine
- Internal system supervision
- Engine control, monitoring and protection
- 3-phase generator protections
- Automatic synchronisation
- Load sharing
- Dual ARCnet bus communication lines for redundancy
- Multiple display units and multiple Advanced Operator Panels
- Interface to the DEIF advanced graphical touch screen AGI
- 2 × Integrated RS-485 Modbus communication port
- 2 × CAN bus port for J1939 engine supervision, CANopen
- USB port for service software
- Up to 690 V AC direct AC inputs
- Alarm and event log
- Advanced load-dependent start/stop calculations
- Blackout prevention and recovery
- Priority selection
- Heavy consumer handling
- Base load function
- Trip of non essential load groups (preferential trip)
- Advanced fuel optimisation features
- One-touch auto sequences
- Dynamic positioning (DP-2) operation with closed bus tie breaker
- Fast dynamic load-share deviation protection
- Fast thruster load reduction
- Optimised load sharing
- 1 × Modbus TCP/IP
- Service software via ethernet for remote access
Medium Voltage Relay MVR-200 series
- Programmable logic
- Fast and easy commissioning and service with front communication port and intuitive software
- Password-protected user levels
- Individual voltage and current harmonics up to 31st
- Redundant Ethernet with Modbus TCP
- RS-485 Modbus RTU communication
- IEC 60870-5-104/103/101 communication
- IEC 61850 communication (incl. HSR, PRT, PTP acc. IEEE 1588) and GOOSE
- On-site replaceable spare part modules
- Class 0.5 power and energy measurement (Class 0.2S optional)
- Conformal Coating available for all devices
- Marine type approval by major class societies
