Fuels

There will be little significant change in the usage of fossil fuels during the coming two decades. However, declining reserves, the lack of sufficient production and refining capacity and growing demand, especially in Asia, have all been pushing up the price of oil in recent years, spurring increasing interest in alternative fuels.

The use of natural gas is growing owing to improved supplies and its environmental advantages. In the past, natural gas has been used by onshore power plants, but today marine vessels are making increasing use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) for fuel. International climate agreements, likewise, are boosting the use of natural gas significantly. When using natural gas carbon dioxide emissions are 25% lower than in the case of oil and 40% lower than for coal. An even more effective way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is to adopt renewable energy sources such as biofuels.

Fuels used in Wärtsilä engines
The use of different fuels is an important part of Wärtsilä’s R&D. Even now multifuel engines offer environmentally sound solutions with low running costs far into the future. Customers have the flexibility to operate the same engine with different fuels. They can, for instance, initially run an engine on heavy fuel oil, and then switch to natural gas later when the distribution network for natural gas has been built, or even switch to biofuel.

Multifuel technology, which permits the use of different types of fuel such as liquid fuels based on crude oil, gaseous fuels and biofuels, allows customers to choose the optimal fuel in each situation. Fuel flexibility also ensures that an engine is available for continuous operation, even if there are problems in obtaining a certain fuel.

Many fuels in a wide range of grades can be used in most Wärtsilä engines, but the suitability of certain fuels, such as the special gases and biofuels listed in the table, must be established separately for certain engine types.

Natural gas is today often the primary fuel option in power plants on land if it is available. However, many countries do not yet have a distribution network for natural gas and the use of liquid fuels is then the main option.

Wärtsilä’s DF engines can run simultaneously on liquid fuel oil and natural gas. If crude oil is available, it is often a practical option for the engine fuel, especially in isolated ­areas. Pumping stations for crude oil pipelines and oil processing units at crude oil fields are typical examples of places where it is used.

The continual fluctuations in heavy fuel oil prices have also created the need to develop new alternative oil-based fuels. These are fuels such as Orimulsion® and the high-viscosity bottom oils obtained from oil company refining processes.

The use of biofuels is another focus area for R&D. Over the past few years, fuels derived from different plants that have been processed in different ways, such as rapeseed oil, palm oil and coconut oil, as well as commercially available products such as Biodiesel (B100), have been successfully tested on Wärtsilä engines.

Range of fuels for Wärtsilä engines