OREANDA-NEWS. Cruise ships have become an economic pillar for the tourism industry, and the staggeringly low oil price has offered an additional boost to its steady growth. An increasing number of cruise ships are entering a later stage of lifetime cycle, creating an increasing need for older ships to be updated with the latest technology making them safer, more efficient, more reliable and cleaner.

Marking this trend, GE’s Marine Solutions (NYSE: GE) has successfully provided upgrade services for three cruise vessels—Pacific Pearl, Pacific Dawn and Pacific Jewel—owned by the Carnival group, the largest cruise ship owner in the world. Thanks to the services provided by GE, the vessels’ propulsion systems will have an extended life.

“GE remains one of Carnival Australia’s experienced and trustworthy partners. They have a long history of providing high-quality solutions for the safety and comfort of our passengers. Thanks to these critical upgrades provided by GE, we have been able to breathe new life into three of our key cruise ships,” said Rhys Hounslow Carnival Australia electrical superintendent—Pacific Aria, Dawn, Eden, Jewel and Pearl and technical superintendent—Pacific Jewel.

Within the scope of work, GE has provided hardware and spare parts, project management, design engineering and shop tests on a real-time simulator. GE also upgraded the propulsion documentation and drawings and supervised the work from installation to sea trials. Training was provided to the customer in Australia using the Mobile Training Centre designed by Belfort Centre of Excellence for Merchant Marine.

“The vessels’ analog controllers were still operating correctly 20 years after its delivery, however the availability of their critical electronic components was no longer guaranteed, and the skilled engineering expertise required to troubleshoot issues was slowly disappearing,” said Jean-Philippe Chaignot, marine solutions leader, GE’s Power Conversion business. “Such issues had the potential to extend a vessel stop, which could have caused the possible shutdown of its control system resulting in severe financial loss for the customer.”

In order to make the upgrade safe, the new controllers were installed and commissioned when the vessels were operating at sea, one drive at a time, with the ability of switching the propulsion back to previous controls at any point during the commissioning phase. The analogue controls were decommissioned only after the digital controls were successfully tested at sea. Existing I/O boards and relevant cabling remained unchanged, keeping costs down and shortening the duration of installation and commissioning.

Following the successful upgrade of the propulsion controls, the machinery control and monitoring controllers were updated. The new hardware, based upon new controllers, features many advantages such as a direct access to an Ethernet network and new P1200 human machine interface, modern technology, an improved computing power density as well as increased user friendliness, reliability and availability. The upgrade work on the Pearl, Jewel and Dawn were all successfully completed in 2015.

Commenting on these successful upgrades, Tim Schweikert, president & CEO, GE’s Marine Solutions said, “GE has been a long-standing partner of the Carnival group working together for 20 years and has equipped more than 30 Carnival Group vessels with its electric power and propulsion systems. Our success lies in the success of our customers, and we’re proud of providing long-lasting and high-quality solutions backed with reliable services that help our customers maintain their competitive edge.”

About GE

GE (NYSE: GE) is the world’s Digital Industrial Company, transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive. GE is organized around a global exchange of knowledge, the "GE Store," through which each business shares and accesses the same technology, markets, structure and intellect. Each invention further fuels innovation and application across our industrial sectors. With people, services, technology and scale, GE delivers better outcomes for customers by speaking the language of industry. 

About GE Energy Connections

GE Energy Connections designs and deploys industry-leading technologies that turn the world on. We transport, convert, automate and optimize energy to ensure we provide safe, efficient and reliable electrical power. Uniting all the resources and scale of the world’s first digital industrial company, we connect brilliant machines, grids, and systems to power utility, oil & gas, marine, mining and renewables customers, that keep our world running. 

About GE’s Marine Solutions

GE's Marine Solutions is dedicated to power and propulsion systems for customers in the workboat, merchant, offshore and naval industries. Smart engineering coupled with software analytics, we provide customers with data-driven efficiency. Connecting the physical and digital worlds, GE helps power, propel, position and predict the marine industry for operational excellence.