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Qatar Research Development and Innovation Council's (QRDI) $150,000 Open Innovation Program

OPEN INNOVATION CHALLENGE BY

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Seeking innovation for a reliable and close to real-time Carbon Accounting and Reporting in Milaha's maritime transportation of containers

As part of QRDI Open Innovation Program Milaha is looking for technologies, processes, and innovative solutions to calculate the carbon footprint of moving containers along their supply chain. With this initiative, Milaha is seeking:

  • Closest to real-time measurement of CO2 emissions.
  • Carbon Accounting and Reporting transparency.
  • Contribute to common metrics definition for development of an industry standard for Carbon Accounting and Reporting in real time (or near to real time)

New Carbon Accounting and Reporting system will facilitate not only compliance with regulatory requirements but also detection of areas of improvement to invest in new technology such as new biofuels or electric engines, supply chain innovative assets and management tools or safety among others.

Desired Business Relationship

  • Milaha will facilitate piloting of winning solution in Qatar
  • Business agreements to be discussed at a later stage

Possible solutions

Deploy devices that track CO2 emission across all of Milaha's vessel fleet. The current fleet is around 9 vessels and 10,800 containers.

Starting with proper measurement and reliable asset tracking and monitoring systems is the key element to boost the company towards a carbon neutral objective.

Desired Solutions

High-level calculation considering the average global CO2 emissions per container is extremely inaccurate.

Learn more about the Challenge

Challenge Details

Context and Details

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), 'transport' is responsible for 21% of global emissions, making it the highest contributor behind the energy sector. Logistics activities (excluding air and rail) account for 8% of global emissions - a significant share. Reducing emissions across the logistics sector could have a significant positive impact globally. In fact, in order to reach the goals agreed at the Paris Climate Agreement, the logistics sector must reduce their carbon footprint by 20%.

There have been several attempts to measure carbon emissions for the logistics industry, but no seamless solution nor transparent process has been deployed and set as an industry standard.

Within this context, there is increasing pressure from the market to improve CO2 emissions rapidly, and there is a need to develop consistent and transparent solutions to monitor, measure and report the carbon footprint in the container shipping sector

Milaha transports more than 500,000 containers per year with an operation that demands an accurate system to track and monitor their CO2 emissions. Currently, emissions are calculated theoretically based on fuel consumption using measurement techniques which are manual, inconsistent, inefficient, and untimely. This method is not accurate as emissions vary based on the age, condition, and efficiency of the transporting asset (in this case vessels).

At the present time, CO2 emissions are calculated based on the European Standard EN 16258 which is based on conversion factors for energy content per volumetric unit of fuel (for example, MJ / litre of fuel). However, the European standard provides high level parameters to be considered, but the calculation methodology varies depending on the user.

Background

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  1. Each part (leg) of the trip.
  2. Load factor for each leg.
  3. Distance travelled in each leg
  4. Conditions during the transit
  5. Traveling speed
  6. Type of vehicle utilized in each leg
  7. Vehicle size (mass).
  8. mount of fuel utilized in each leg
  9. Type of fuel.
  10. Exhaust emission control device.

Requirements

MUST HAVE

  • Allow for real-time data visualization of sustainability performance
  • Real time monitoring should be accessible to operators as well as sent to the command centre.
  • Emissions data should be also accessible to customers via customer web portal.

NICE TO HAVE

  • Real time monitoring should be accessible to operators as well as sent to the command centre and integrated with the ESG reporting system.
  • New KPIs measurable in real time.

Emissions can be considered as:

Well-To-Wheel (WTW):

from the oil field to the fuel combustion in the vehicle's engine. It includes the emissions reported from extraction, refining, transport, tanking and combustion (including energy losses due to engine efficiency)

Well-To-Tank (WTT):

from the oil field to the vehicle's fuel tank. These are the emissions reported from oil extraction, refining, transport until tanking.

Tank-to-Wheel (TTW):

from the vehicle's fuel tank to the combustion in the engine. These are the emissions due to the combustion engine powering the vehicle. This can be considered the emissions directly caused by the transport of goods, since otherwise the fuel will remain stored.

Technology Readiness Level (TRL) sought:

We are accepting proposals between 5 - 9

Timeline
The cooperation project will develop in two phases:

Official Webinar Launch

08th September

Deadline for submission

07th October

Phase 1 2022 -2023

Proposal evaluation (September 2022)

Phase 2 within two years

Proof of concept / Pilot Implementation / Adaptation (2022-2023)

Phase 3 within two years

Collaboration agreement for full scale installations (within 2 years)

Register for the Webinar!

Join the experts of Qatar Research Development and Innovation Council together with its corporate partner Milaha for an exclusive webinar on QRDI Council $150,000 Funding Open Innovation Program and Milaha's introduction to its new Open Innovation Challenge:

  • Seeking innovative solutions to Automation and optimization of stowage plannin

Find out about the types of collaboration we are offering and learn about the partnerships we already have. This webinar will give you access to essential insights that will help you build a winning submission and room to ask all the questions you may have on the challenge!

FAQs

The focus of this program is mainly the private sector.The Open Innovation challenge is open to start-ups, SMEs, and Corporates. Universities can participate through a partnership with the private sector. The lead applicant should be part of the private sector. We welcome submission to this program for companies and organizations as inside Qatar, as outside Qatar. This challenge is not open to employees of QRDI and Milaha and members of their families.

The submission process is already open. You can apply by visiting this linkhttps://qrdi-councilopeninnovation.innoget.com . Choose a challenge which you want to apply to and click the “Write proposal” button and follow the steps to have your proposal submitted.

Participants can submit more than one proposal.

The status of your submissions can be checked from the “Replies” dashboard on your Innoget.com account.

Yes, both teams and individuals can participate. They will be evaluated in the same way, since what is important for us is the idea/proposal.

No, proposals can't be edited after submission. Please make sure your proposal contains all required information before you submit it to Milaha

The status of your submissions can be checked from the “Replies” dashboard on your Innoget.com account.

Evaluation criteria is driven by the information that is required in the submission template.One important criteria for evaluation is innovation which requires further development and initial prototype and pilot engagement with partners. The following topics will guide the evaluation process: 1) Quality of solution and technical validity , 2) The Solution implementation includes necessary resources, timeline to prototyping and roadmap to upscaling, and 3) Company experience and team-lead/engineers experience.

Currently we see as a priority being able to provide our customers with information regarding the CO2 emissions per container at any point of their transit. Our direct impact comes from the sea-side, since it is the part where we have most control. We could think of a phase 1 where we capture the information for the vessel / sea-side and a phase 2 where we add the land-side.

Milaha is seeking to be able to inform our customer about the Co2 emissions caused by the movement of their cargo. This is a requirement from many customers and is becoming a commercial need for us. A successful pilot would be one where we can identify the CO2 emissions related to a specific container at any point of its journey. For example: A container travelling from Doha to Dubai either by land or sea, then we can check how much CO2 has been emitted from the shipper's warehouse until the moment the Saudi border or when is in its sea transit.

Current tracking only shows the location of the container.

The pilot should be able to show the Co2 emitted from the moment the container started its journey (for example, the shipper's warehouse) until the moment the information is checked, no matter if the container is in the middle of the sea.

The idea would be to have end-to-end transport chain of a shipment, including other carriers and modes.

All

Yes, it includes other carriers and modes.

Our internal ERP system is collecting, analysing, reporting, and visualising data and KPIs.

Yes, in some.

Currently it is a commercial & operational requirement to be able to present Co2 emissions related to the specific cargo but also as a logistics company as a whole. This is becoming a market differentiator and some large customers are putting a greater onus on the carbon footprint of vendors in their vendor selection process.

About Milaha - The Opportunity Owner

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Milaha is a Qatari Public Shareholding Company with the diversity to deliver seamlessly integrated transport and supply chain solutions. Today, with an expanding fleet, state-of-the art equipment, well-trained manpower and world-class partners, we're competing to become a globally recognised player in maritime and logistics services

Contact us

Submit your comments or general inquiries regarding these challenges. We appreciate the opportunity to be of assistance.

Haya Al Ghanim

Program Director at QRDI Council