You have unscheduled downtime or malfunction of your on-board system (D2 standard)

With InvaSave technology, raw ballast water from the vessel can be treated during ballast water discharge, or used to supply certified ballast water to the vessel.

Treat ballast water during discharge

A vessel needing to discharge raw ballast water can do so by connecting to the intake connection of the InvaSave. The system processes the water received from the vessel and consequently discharges it into the surface waters.

Supply certified ballast water to the vessel.

Water generated by the InvaSave is certified to the IMO D-2 standard. If this water is subsequently loaded as ballast onboard vessels, it is considered ‘treated’ as would be the case if a certified on-board system had treated the same water. Upon arriving at your destination, discharging the ballast via your onboard treatment system is considered fully complying with the Ballast Water Convention. This is a useful feature if, for example, your on-board treatment system breaks down when taking in water in port as ballast water. Simply take on board InvaSave-treated water instead of raw seawater and fix your onboard treatment system on the way to your next destination. This way, you can avoid having to wait in port for your ballast water system to be fixed!

Not possible to perform ballast water exchange (D1 Standard)

Now that the D1 standard (i.e., the requirement to exchange ballast water on the high seas) has come into effect, unmanned barges generally find that ballast water management compliance is near impossible. With no legal and safe way to have personnel working on these barges while offshore (hence the term ‘unmanned’), ballast water exchange at designated locations is not possible.

The logical solution

In essence, exchanging ballast water (according to the D1 standard) means exchanging the potentially biologically contaminated water taken in from shallow waters close to shore with clean ‘deep ocean’ water.

By only using InvaSave 300 water certified to the future D2 standard to fill up the vessel’s ballast water tanks, the ‘exchange’ has effectively taken place. After all, this ‘D2 water’ is practically void of any aquatic organisms. With this in mind, the approach described is likely more biologically effective than actual deep-sea ballast water exchange, where the absence of naturally occurring organisms can never be guaranteed. It is recognized that this approach is not fully equivalent to the D2 standard. After all, sediments in the tanks cannot be guaranteed to be free from any organisms, and these are not addressed by pumping in D2 water. However, as an equivalent approach to the D1 standard, it matches or even exceeds the original D1 approach.

Shipyards and repair yards handling ballast water

Docking of a vessel and treatment of ballast water

To enter a ship dock on even keel, a vessel uses ballast water to achieve the correct trim. This means that after docking, the Ballast Tanks are still (partly) filled with ballast water. For larger vessels, the amount of ballast water left in the ballast tanks can be many thousands of tonnes. Often, these Ballast Tanks must be drained in the dock, to enable inspection of the Ballast Tanks by classification societies. This draining usually achieved by opening of the bottom plugs.

The ballast water inside the Ballast Tanks of a docked vessel will often (usually) not meet the D2 standard of the Ballast Water Management Convention. This is the case even for vessels with a BWTU installed since, by design, the ballast water has to pass the BWTU twice to be able to meet the D2 standard. These treatment steps are carried out during intake and discharge of ballast water. This means that the ballast water inside a Ballast Tank does not meet the D2 standard, since it has only ever been treated at intake.

After the ballast water management convention is enforced in its full extent, in many countries it will not be allowed to discharge ballast water in a dock without meeting the D2 standard. With the help of the InvaSave however, the ballast water discharged through the bottom plugs in the dry dock can be treated to meet the D2 standard and pumped directly into the surface waters.

Filling of the Ballast Tanks before undocking

To enable save undocking, a vessel must again be filled with ballast water to achieve the correct trim, once floated. When the ship is in (dry) dock no water is available to fill up the Ballast Tanks via the BWTU.

However, many suppliers prescribe that the Ballast Tanks must be cleaned and free of untreated ballast water to guarantee the functionality of the BWTU. Owing to the very strict nature of the D2-standard, a contamination of a ballast tank with untreated ballast water will often lead to the inability of a vessel to meet this D2 standard during future ballast water operations.

With the help of the InvaSave the ballast tanks can be filled up with pre-certified D2-ballast water before undocking, without the risk of contamination the Ballast Tanks. In this way, there is no pre-existing condition that would risk failure of the commissioning tests, and the installed BWTU is free to perform to its expected standard.

Operate floating platforms, FSU’s, FSRU’s, FPSO’s and others located in one area for many years

Floating platforms, FSUs, FSRU’s and FPSO’s may be exempted from certain requirements of the Convention. It is up to the relevant shelf authority to establish appropriate measures for these units (BWM.2/CIRC.52/Rev.1, 27 July 2017).

If a Ballast Water Management Certificate is not required by the shelf authorities, the requirements of the Convention become applicable only in the case of relocating the unit. To prevent the transport of invasive species to a new area.

Compliance with the Convention could be achieved by the following InvaSave-enabled solution.

Before the floating platform is relocated, the ballast tanks should be emptied via the InvaSave, which means meeting the D2 standard in a single step. After emptying the ballast tanks, they should be cleaned before filling the ballast tank with pre-certified InvaSave D2 ballast water. Using this strategy, ballast water may be freely exchanged (dumped) once the platform is at its destination. This action should be repeated each time a platform changes location.

You like to delay the investment of installing a retrofit system, just to sail a few years more before scrapping the vessel

For some existing ships, the conventional method of installing ballast water management systems onboard will bring technical and cost challenges. Firstly, it is difficult for some ships to be converted due to their structure and age. For older ships, especially those close to be recycled, conversion will bring a huge cost burden. Secondly, there is a low utilization rate of shipboard ballast water management systems for ships that have long shipping routes with few port calls. For instance, the Brazilian flagged VLOC Vale Brasil of 400,000 deadweight tonnage can carry approximately 120,000 tonnes of ballast water each time. It has about five voyages and can transfer 600,000 tonnes of ballast water per year.

In terms of operation, port reception facilities for discharging ballast water can offer greater convenience. The daily maintenance of on board ballast water management systems entails a lot of time for ships due to the complex technology. Also, an officer has to be designated to ensure the implementation of ballast water management plan and to ensure that ballast water management and treatment procedures are followed and recorded, which burdens the ship's operation.

Not possible to have the BWMS on board the vessel running on time

After the IOPP renewal vessels have to meet the ballast water D2 standard. Otherwise the International Ballast Water Management Certificate will not be handed out to the vessel. What to do in case the delivery of the Ballast Water Management System for on board of the ship is delayed, or the Ballast Water Management System for on board is not yet running and the vessel needs to leave the yard?

Water generated by the InvaSave is certified to the IMO D-2 standard. If this water is subsequently loaded as ballast onboard vessels, it is considered ‘treated’ as would be the case if a certified on-board system had treated the same water. In this manner the vessel can continue operations, without the waiting days to get the ballast water system for on board of the ship up and running.