Brittany Ferries has teamed up with Adrena and Bureau Veritas Solutions Marine & Offshore to successfully demonstrate fuel savings of up to 6% through the deployment of an advanced digital twin-enabled routing solution.
The AdrenaShip concept highlights the potential of advanced digital technologies to improve vessel efficiency and support maritime decarbonisation.
Combining Brittany Ferries’ operational expertise, Adrena’s route optimisation capabilities and BV Solutions’ vessel performance, and digital twin expertise, the three partners have developed a solution that delivers measurable reductions in fuel consumption while maintaining operational reliability, schedule integrity, and service quality.
The savings have been validated through thousands of commercial crossings and nearly two years of onboard monitoring aboard Galicia (chartered E-Flexer-class from Stena Ro Ro), and the solution has now been deployed across nine ferries of the fleet.
Visit Route du Rhum - Destination Guadeloupe start village
Next Monday (26 Oct), in Saint-Malo, at the Brittany Ferries stand at the Route du Rhum - Destination Guadeloupe start village, along with Adrena and Bureau Veritas Solutions, will present these digital solutions.
This will be an opportunity to meet with the teams, discover the technologies deployed on the ferries, and gain a better understanding of their contribution to the fleet’s energy performance.
Among them, Afloat adds E-Flexer Saint-Malo, acquired from Stena last year, and that November made its maiden call to Rosslare Europort, covering the Ireland-Spain route through Bilbao, before the LNG hybrid fuel ferry also started a stint with Cherbourg. Otherwise, it serves its namesake homeport with Portsmouth.
Launching the energy fuel savings
In 2016, Brittany Ferries and Adrena first launched the system to provide a routing solution designed to improve fuel efficiency and operational safety through route optimisation and performance analysis, delivering fuel savings of approximately 4%. Four years later, in 2022, the Breton ferry firm expanded the partnership to include BV Solutions to develop vessel-specific digital twins that enhance the predictive capabilities of AdrenaShip.
By combining operational data, engineering expertise, and onboard experience, the digital twins improve the accuracy of routing recommendations and provide guidance on machinery operation, enabling fuel savings of up to 6%, validated via extensive operational testing.
The results achieved are particularly significant given Brittany Ferries’ operating profile, whose ropax vessels mainly operate short crossings under sustained operational constraints between France, the United Kingdom, Guernsey, Ireland, and Spain. This collaboration between Brittany Ferries, Adrena, and BV Solutions M&O illustrates the maritime industry’s ability to combine field expertise, digital innovation, and the energy transition to support the sector’s decarbonisation.
Commenting on the energy-saving solutions, Brice Robinson, Head of Studies and Projects, Brittany Ferries, said, "This initiative perfectly illustrates our commitment to developing tailor-made digital solutions that are adapted to the specific characteristics of our fleet and our operations. This success is the result of a collective effort carried out with our crews, which has enabled continuous improvement of the tools since its launch.
He added, "The results achieved demonstrate that it is possible to reduce our vessels’ energy consumption while preserving the reliability of our operations and the experience we offer our customers. And this momentum continues: these solutions keep evolving to support our performance and energy transition ambitions.”
Laurent Verney, France/Europe Director, Bureau Veritas Solutions M&O said, “Our experience of the energy transition has taught us that standardised solutions represent an important first step towards maritime decarbonisation, but they quickly reach a plateau. Achieving sustainable performance requires tailor-made solutions that fully address the real operational constraints of a vessel and evolve alongside them. It is this ability to understand the diversity of maritime challenges and respond to them with practical solutions that is the strength of BV Solutions.”
Michel Rodet, Chairman and Founder of Adrena, said, "The results achieved on Galicia confirm what we have been developing for close to 15 years: a routing and consumption prediction model with 97% reliability, validated here under real commercial operating conditions and strict ETA constraints. This level of accuracy has been proven in the field, not in a simulated environment. It was measured on actual crossings by an independent body over almost two years of study. It is this rigour that allows crews to trust AdrenaShip’s recommendations and fully realise the operational and environmental benefits.”
