TSHD Middelburg: for broad deployment

The houses we live in, the offices we work in, the roads we drive on; they are all examples of everyday items where sand plays an essential role as a raw material. Special vessels are required for sand extraction. These vessels are called sand dredgers, trailing suction hopper dredgers or TSHDs. TSHD Middelburg, with a length of 90 meters and a width of 14.50 meters, is such a vessel. Until the end of 2017, the Middelburg was a hull that had been idle for 10 years after a bankruptcy of the then owner. In the meantime, the vessel has been converted from a large piece of steel to the multi-purpose trailing suction hopper dredger it is today.

Wide deployability of the TSHD

In the initial stages of the project, the current owner of the vessel, Van Ouwerkerk BV, called in Hoogendijk Electric. They were asked to plan the electrical installation for this trailing suction hopper dredger. Van Ouwerkerk's issue for the TSHD Middelburg was a broad use of multiple disciplines. Director of Hoogendijk Electric, Kees Hoogendijk, says: 'We talked to Van Ouwerkerk about the intended use of the ship, what it was supposed to do and what kind of power. We did see the possibility of using the main engine as a source of energy for the power grid.' As a result of their findings, Hoogendijk decided to contact Controlin for a partnership in this project.

The objective was to join forces and find the best solution

Kees Hoogendijk says: ‘Since the start of our cooperation Controlin has been one of the main suppliers of components including panel meters, synchronization units, current transformers, shunts, kilowatt-hour meters and measured value transducers.  Nowadays Controlin is also our supplier when it comes to generator controls including software and technical support from the support department. For each new project we have to see how we can apply our suppliers' products and services to our customers. Therefore, we always consider the wishes of our customers. As in previous projects, the TSHD Middelburg project also proved to have a lot of common ground in which it all matched up. Together with one of the technical experts from Controlin we found the solution to run the shaft generator, equipped with a controller, in parallel and to make a power distribution with the other generators.'

Support to build on

The expert Kees Hoogendijk mentioned is Wim. He is one of the five technical experts in the Controlin support team. With many years of experience with ComAp products, it was no problem for them to find the best solution for this project. A customer-specific solution made up largely of ComAp products providing efficiency in multiple ways. With the user-friendly software the end user can easily add different functionalities to the controller step by step. These include power management, security and monitoring of the generators. There was only one universal component required. This component can be used for any type of generator, including shore power and Bus Tie Breaker (BTB).

Free choice for the customer

Hoogendijk Electric wanted optimal mutual communication between the various systems present on the ship. Also, Hoogendijk Electric likes to have the freedom to build its own power management and automation system. In this way they can respond to power reductions, power control and uniformity in programming. Controlin’s contributions included the supply of various components, support and testing of the pieces of software in their own test room.

Interaction for proper housekeeping

TSHD Middelburg has one shaft generator and 2 auxiliary generators. From the main distributor, three IG-NTC-BB generator controllers supplied by Controlin, in interaction with as many IV5 control panels, realize the control of all generators and the visualization of different modes. With the IG-NTC-BB the auxiliary generators can run in parallel with the shaft generator..

Primary power demand

The shaft generator will respond to the primary power demand. When there is a higher power demand, the generators automatically switch on. For propulsion, Controlin supplied an ID-DCU engine controller with associated redundant back up unit and an IV8 control panel through Anglo Belgian Corporation of Ghent, Belgium. This solution allows the main engine to be monitored and controlled and provides the communication with the main distributor.

Energiehuishouding vs vPower management vs power display

The two auxiliary generators are responsible for the power management of the entire ship. Bus bar 1 is for the "clean" on-board power supply to lights, winches, household components and some small tools. Busbar 2 is for the 'dirty' bigger consumers like the big jet pump <280kW>, the bow thruster <300kW> and another smaller jet pump <160kW>. The advantage of this solution with double rail system is that the polluters are on a separate network. For the communication with and control of the diesel engine Controlin supplied ID-DCU engine controllers for the auxiliary generators via Veth Propulsion in Papendrecht.

Complied with the end customer's request

The functionalities applied made sure that the TSHD Middelburg is what the owner wanted prior to the large-scale project: a multifunctional trailing suction hopper dredger. Krijn Lucasse, project manager at Van Ouwerkerk, underlines this: 'There's a lot of functionality on it. You can say: we collect sand from the seabed and pump it into the hold from where it is unloaded by a grab and loaded into a barge. Or it is pumped as wet sand into an inland barge which will then take it elsewhere in the Netherlands or further to Belgium or France, for example. Dry unloading on a quay is another option. For this purpose, various equipment was installed including a conveyor belt and a crane. We can also discharge it through the bottom (split hopper). Finally, the ship has facilities for pressure unloading and rainbowing.'

A dynamic partnership

After several successful test rounds, the TSHD Middelburg has been put into service and Kees Hoogendijk shared his experiences about the cooperation with Controlin:

'For this project, too, our experience with Controlin has been positive. We managed to complete a good project. After our experiences in previous projects where we worked together, we do not expect any problems afterwards. In fact, so far we have always Controlin very reliable and we have had no problems in the 5 years since completion. That is certainly important to us. We have put our time and energy into it and now we really just want to let it go so that it runs well for years. And that's what we're doing.'