An international consortium

One of the most exciting European projects in the race to achieve 2030 carbon goals must be Project Greensand which is working towards making CO2 storage part of Denmark’s solution to the climate challenges we all face.

Project Greensand is truly ground-breaking, aiming to demonstrate whether the concept of carbon capture and the related technology can work at scale, opening up the prospect of other countries following its lead.

A consortium of partners from Denmark and around the world are working together at the vanguard of this technology which aims to liquify and bury deep underground up to 13% of the country’s CO2 emissions. The liquified CO2 will be pumped back into depleted wells in the North Sea off Denmark.

One of these consortium members is Esvagt, a company which has been part of the oil and gas ecosystem in the North Sea for more than 40 years and has been instrumental to the building of today’s standards relating to safety and secure operations through its development of the Emergency Response and Rescue Vessels (ERRV) operating in the region.

With such a wealth of experience in, and commitment to, safety, Esvagt was delighted to be invited to join the consortium where its role is to provide a vessel dedicated to facilitating the seismic recordings and measurements taken throughout the duration of the project. The ESVAGT INNOVATOR is currently on long-term charter to INEOS. For the Greensand project the vessel is hosting more than 10 other partners and their staff, all handling the technical aspects of the project, and this is where Telenor Satellite gets involved.

Data sent between ship and shore

Through our Danish reseller, Seasat, we have been providing connectivity to the vessel, enabling data to be sent from ship to shore and vice versa. In fact, connectivity is a vital element of the project which requires quick analysis of the recordings coming from each of the different aspects of the project and the many partners involved. This is in the form of a 12/1 Mbps service which is delivered by our satellite THOR 5/Spot 1 on Ku-band. In addition to the connectivity required by the researchers, we are also maintaining communications links in support of the ship’s own critical systems such as DP positioning, systems monitoring, and internet.

When cruise and ferry vessels resumed activities in 2021 following the pandemic, Marel Electronics, the Greek based specialist supplier and service company for ship communications and bridge navigation electronics, found that demand for connectivity from its passenger ferry clients had increased enormously.

The company is the major supplier to the Greek market and, although it provides some FM, VHF marine radio and GMDSS products, the vast majority of its services are VSAT, 100% of which uses Space Norway’s THOR fleet. Having been in business since 1964 and in the telecommunications sector for the past fifteen years, Marel Electronics is well known in the industry and works not only with passenger vessels but also in the more specialised research ship sector where scientists conduct ocean and oil research requiring significant VSAT services to support their onboard operations, tutorials and video conferences.

Possibly one of the most recognisable names in Norwegian fishing, Hermes has been operating out of Tromsø in the Arctic Circle for just under 70 years. The company employs some 50 people of whom 45 are involved directly in the fishing business. The current Hermes vessel was acquired in 2006 and runs with a rotating crew who spend five weeks onboard followed by five weeks at home.

The ship operates 24 hours a day, catching and processing fish, with crew working two six hour shifts a day – a shift pattern that takes some getting used to. In fact, the only person onboard able to sleep for more than five hours at a time is the steward. And with its fishing grounds in the Barents Sea, around Svalbard and Spitzbergen, or even further north where conditions are icy, dark, cold and windy, it is a harsh environment for the ship and its crew.

“On occasions we have tested technology and we couldn’t believe the speeds we were getting, and how far north we were able to travel and still receive a great service. I think we are the first commercial users of this service in the region, and I don’t think you will find any other Norwegian vessel with better internet connections than we have on Hermes.”

The company actually has 13 Mbps of combined upload delivered by way of a 12/3 Mbps Ka-band service delivered on Velocity® together with a 30/10 Ku-band service using Dialog as it needs to deal with the challenges of latency and compression of the livestreaming. In addition, there needs to be sufficient bandwidth to deal with drops in connectivity – the audience expects to receive a good quality result.

To build a ship of this nature normally takes upwards of two years from laying of the keel to delivery, but the final period in the build process consists of intensive testing of all the infrastructure and systems to identify any issues. This is the point where Space Norway comes in.

Through our trusted partner AST, we have been contracted to supply satellite communications to the ship as it is put through its paces in the seas around the Nordic region. Our THOR 7 satellite is supplying Ka band High Throughput Satellite (HTS) services for the testing of all the electronic systems onboard the vessel such as telemetry, navigation systems, engine management, video conferencing, air conditioning services, reporting and every other communications system linked back to shore.

Our flexible service and excellent coverage from our prime position at 1°West makes us ideal providers for sea trials running as they do for a relatively short time period only in this specific regional area. We are agile enough to be able to supply a super high bandwidth, high quality service for a limited period with an option to extend if the sea trial needs to continue for longer.

AST is a global satellite communications services and equipment supplier with over 25 years’ experience, and Space Norway has been supplying communications through the company for more than six years. During this time, a very strong relationship has developed between our companies, and we share an ethos of always putting the customer at the heart of business and believing that partnerships between like-minded companies facilitate that.

Chris Schonhut, AST’s Head of Maritime Sales and Operations for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, explains why AST was selected to provide satellite services throughout the sea trials:  “AST, via a trusted local partner, provides the full end to end service for the customer, not only does the customer get use of Space Norway’s HTS THOR 7 service they also get full visibility of the data being passed over the link via our INTEGRA services, all backed up by AST’s 24/7 Global Customer Support.”

In terms of the sea trial, data from every single system installed on the ship is being transmitted back to shore where it is analysed. To support this, Space Norway is making available 50/5 Mbps, or even higher if needed, on Ka band to provide the best possible results, a provision that can be extended at short notice if required.

This is combined with AST’s unique INTEGRA services, ensuring the shipyard has complete visibility as to where the data is being used at any time, and demonstrating that they are gaining the maximum benefit from the service. Furthermore, INTEGRA provides real time application control so that some categories can be blocked without affecting others, for example video streaming can be disabled while still allowing texts or calls.

“From our point of view, Space Norway provides us great flexibility combined with a very rapid response time”, he adds, “and our two teams are now so used to working closely together that issues are resolved in as short a time as possible. Everything in the maritime world is time critical but that is particularly the case with sea trials where the financial imperative is to complete the checks and deliver the vessel.”

Sea trials can certainly place very specific demands on communications services but, because of the close collaboration between all the different parties involved, the end result has been that of a flexible, visible and high-quality provision that has performed extremely well.

“At Space Norway, we are thrilled to support AST on such missions, as they require the high performance we are able to offer, as well as speed and responsiveness in our service provisioning,” noted Jan Hetland, Director, Data Services, Satcom at Space Norway.

We at Space Norway love the challenges that arise from systems’ testing and look forward to our next ‘shakedown cruise’.