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Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) says its Hawaii-based ship, Pride of America, is 'in the final phases of installation' of its own fuel scrubbers, making her the first of NCL's vessels to utilize this technology.

The scrubbers were installed during the ship's dry dock refurbishment in March and are scheduled to be fully operational later this year.

The company's new Breakaway Plus vessels, due to be introduced in 2015 and 2017, will also include fuel scrubbers, which reduce emissions to comply with regulations for vessels sailing in Emission Control Areas (ECAs).

A recent naming contest with over 100,000 entries from across the world resulted in the selection of the names Norwegian Escape and Norwegian Bliss for the two ships, keeping with the company's trend of ship names which are said to describe and support its proposition of freedom and flexibility.

In July, NCL announced that the two new Breakaway Plus class ships will be the first newbuilds in the cruise industry to feature scrubber technology developed by Green Tech Marine (GTM), a leading marine scrubber supplier, which claims that its GTM scrubber is the world's smallest.

GTM is contracted to provide five scrubbers per ship for the engines, which range from 14.4 to 16.8 megawatts. According to NCL, the installation will be the largest scrubber plant in the world with a total engine power of 76.8 megawatts.

The GTM-R scrubbers are compact, making it possible for the builds to avoid the loss of cabin space or other service areas. GTM uses one smaller scrubber for each engine instead of a large multi inlet scrubber serving several engines, and the scrubber also replaces the silencer.

The GTM-R scrubbers are said to hold all the necessary certificates to ensure the vessels are compliant with the 0.1% sulphur limit in Emission Control Areas, beginning in 2015.

Image: Norwegian Breakaway.