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Earlier this month, electrical system integrator Alewijnse was awarded the contract for the electrical refit of the TSHD Samuel de Champlain, a 117-metre, 8500m³ trailing suction hopper dredger owned by GIE Dragages-Ports, based in Rouen, France and operated by the port of Nantes-Saint-Nazaire. The vessel is to be converted from diesel-electric propulsion burning MGO to dual-fuel capability combining LNG and MGO, and this will be the first conversion of its kind to take place on a dredger in Europe. 

The works will include the change of generators to dual-fuel models and the installation of onboard LNG storage facilities, and will take place at Damen Shiprepair Dunkerque. They are scheduled to start in the second half of 2018 and will take one hundred days. To complete the work within this limited period, the Alewijnse project team will operate a system of three shifts. Work has already begun on the engineering and a study of the harmonics in preparation for the electrical conversion.

Scope of works
Once the Samuel de Champlain arrives at Damen Shipyards Dunkerque, the Alewijnse team will begin with dismantling and removing the old equipment and cabling. With that completed it will move on to upgrading the power management system (PMS) and the alarm and monitoring system (IAS), replacing the fire alarm system, and then undertaking the cabling, connection and cold wire testing of the new equipment. In addition, Alewijnse will provide and install ATEX lighting in the gas zones, a CCTV system, a gas detection system and soft starters for the jet pumps and electric propulsion (900 and 600kW, 6.6KvA).

Working with the fuels of the future
With the commission for the Samuel de Champlain, Alewijnse strengthens its already strong position in the LNG and dual-fuel market. Earlier this year, the company supplied the complete electrical outfitting for the ground-breaking Bodewes LNG tanker BN803 Coralius, the first purpose-built LNG bunker and feeder vessel to be built in Europe.

GIE Dragages-Ports is an economic interest group that owns, maintains and charters out a fleet of seven dredgers to six key ports serving the French Atlantic coast plus Marseille in the Mediterranean. It is 50% owned by the seven ports and 50% by the French State. The conversion of the Samuel de Champlain is part of an EU-supported initiative to promote LNG propulsion in short-sea vessels operating along the European Atlantic coast, supported by funding from the European Commission’s Connecting Europe Facility programme. The conversion of the Samuel de Champlain will demonstrate the feasibility of using LNG as a fuel on smaller vessels, and allow GIE Dragages-Ports to fulfil its mission of optimising costs via lower fuel bills and less engine maintenance, while at the same time delivering greatly reduced emissions of CO2.