CAT to Power World's First LNG-Hybrid Power Barge

Caterpillar Marine recently shipped the first of five new Cat® G3516C marine gas engines from their Lafayette, Indiana manufacturing facility to the Port of Hamburg for installation aboard the world’s first LNG-Hybrid power barge. The barge was ordered by Becker Marine Systems’ subsidiary, Hybrid Port Energy and is due for delivery this summer.

The five engines will provide 7.75 MW of power while operating solely on LNG to cold ironing cruise ships and serve as a backup power provider for the local Hamburg electric power and heat grid.

The Engines

Caterpillar notes the G3516 is a spark-ignited, gas engine specially designed to operate in commercial vessel applications. The solution is compliant with the strict Marine Classification Societies requirements, SOLAS and is certified by Bureau Veritas.

“We are working very closely with the technical team from Zeppelin and Bureau Veritas to provide a customer solution which is not only safe and environmental friendly, but also very economical in regards to the lowest cost of operation,” commented Chris Chenette, Caterpillar Large Power System marine product value manager. “The G3516 marine engines represent a pinnacle in efficiency and peak performance, with the capability to handle the dynamic load profiles in typical vessel operations.”

The base engine is the field-proven, land-based Cat G3516C Island Mode genset engine which is known for its best-in-class transient response. The G3516C is a vee-16 configuration, providing 1550 ekW @ 1,500 rpm. The fuel system is an inlet fumigated low pressure gas system. It is able to run at 100% power with gas qualities down to Methane Nr 70. The electronics and control system provide the reliability and safety that marine customers demand. Additionally, the first generator set packages recently completed and successfully passed the Bureau Veritas witness testing at the Zeppelin Power Systems facility in Achim, Germany.

“For this particular project, some changes to the engine were required in order to meet the strict marine classification society standards; however we were able to leverage many of the approved solutions from our current Cat 3500 type approved marine diesel engine,” added Chenette.