Damen recently sent its in-house developed InvaSave mobile ballast water treatment system to Gijon to receive ballast water from a tanker. The system allows vessels to comply with the Ballast Water Management Convention without undergoing an expensive retrofit.
As the IMO’s Ballast Water Convention has been extended to cover existing vessels in addition to newbuilds, vessel owners must address their processes for taking on or discharging ballast water. By the time of their first IOPP certificate renewal following the 8 September deadline, all vessels will be required to meet IMO-D2 standards regarding ballast water treatment.
The D2 standard states discharge water must contain fewer than ten viable organisms per cubic metre that are greater than or equal to fifty micrometers in minimum dimension and fewer than ten viable organisms per millilitre that are less than fifty micrometers in minimum dimension and greater than or equal to ten micrometers in minimum dimension.
Alternative to Retrofit
‘InvaSave provides a mobile and flexible solution to this requirement,’ says Damen Green Solutions’ Matthijs Schuiten, ‘meeting market demand without causing operational delays. If a vessel is unable to discharge its ballast water, the loss of income through downtime, compounded by additional port costs, has a huge impact on the vessel owner’s bottom line. The efficiency of InvaSave’s model also potentially saves owners months of downtime waiting for a retrofit.’
Damen has been offering the InvaSave solution for over five years, launching the InvaSave 300 in 2017 and improving its functionality in preparation for the introduction of this latest legislation. Following successful demonstrations of its capability in Lisbon on 16th and 17th May this year, this latest exercise in Gijon provides final confirmation that InvaSave meets the latest regulatory demands.
Mechanical Filtration and Ultraviolet Radiation
The InvaSave 300 IMO-certified system is an external ballast water treatment unit that in a single pass uses mechanical filtration and ultraviolet radiation to remove and eradicate invasive organisms from ballast water as it is discharged from inbound vessels, to IMO-D2 standards. InvaSave can also provide ballast water of the same quality to outbound vessels.
In a Single Container
The entire system comes in a single, 40ft container and so is fully mobile; ideal for placing on a barge, workboat or trailer for easy movement around a port, harbour or shipyard.
