Challenge

The Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces (DND/CAF) are seeking innovative solutions to accurately measure fuel and load energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission data across the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) fleet. The DND/CAF are also looking for means of an energy management infrastructure to organize and analyze energy consumption and GHG emission data.

Background and Context

The RCN is committed to contributing toward reducing overall GHG emissions to meet the Greening Government Strategy net-zero 2050 commitment. To meet this commitment, it is imperative to first be able to accurately quantify the amount of energy used as well as the amount of GHG emitted across the RCN fleet. The capabilities to do so are constrained in part because the naval ships have varying instrumentations and designs, which make it difficult to capture the energy data needed. In addition, obtaining reliable measurements of energy consumption and GHG emission are challenging because of the range of conditions under which naval ships operate (e.g., calm vs. rough sea states, erratic operational patterns).

Moreover, the DND’s ability to manage and forecast progress towards achieving net-zero GHG emission across the RCN fleet is constrained by a lack of energy data management infrastructure. Data integration and analysis are problematic given that naval ships are a mixture of technologies spanning multiple decades and there is no standardized format of record keeping as there is a mixture of analog and digital record keeping. In instances where handwritten record keeping is used, there is increased risk of data entry errors and the non-standardized format does not lend itself to data analytics.

Essential Outcomes

DND/CAF are looking for innovative new systems and technologies.

Proposed solutions must:

• Measure energy consumption and GHG emissions across the fleet;
• Record, analyze, and monitor this energy consumption and GHG emission data; and
• Allow for the visualization of the energy consumption and GHG emissions at the system, ship, class and fleet levels.

Desired Outcomes

Proposed solutions should include capabilities such as, but not limited to, the following:

• Allow GHG monitoring of individual vessels across the RCN fleet;
• Not require extensive down-time for installation or maintenance and;
• Be rugged for use in the marine environment.

Supplemental Information

The RCN fleet to be considered for this challenge includes the existing Halifax Class vessels, Kingston Class vessels, ORCA class vessels, and the forthcoming Canadian Surface Combatant, Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship (AOPS), and Joint Support Ship (JSS) vessels.

It is requested that innovators use the assumption that naval vessels are constrained to using conventional diesel fuel oils, and that significant changes to the existing propulsion systems are not practical.

The Greening Government Strategy can be accessed at: https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/services/innovation/greening-government/strategy.html