Optimizing ship energy efficiency is a crucial measure for reducing fuel use and emissions in the shipping industry. Accurate prediction models of ship energy consumption are essential for achieving this optimization. However, external factors affecting ship fuel consumption have not been comprehensively investigated, and many existing studies still face efficiency and accuracy challenges. In this study, we propose a neural network model called TCN-GRU-MHSA (TGMA), which incorporates the temporal convolutional network (TCN), the gated recurrent unit (GRU), and multi-head self-attention mechanisms to predict ship energy consumption. Firstly, the characteristics of ship operation data are analyzed, and appropriate input features are selected. Then, the prediction model is established and validated through application analysis. Using the proposed model, the prediction accuracy of ship energy consumption can reach up to 96.04%. Comparative analysis results show that the TGMA model outperforms existing models, including those based on LSTM, GRU, SVR, TCN-GRU, and BP neural networks, in terms of accuracy. Therefore, the developed model can effectively predict ship fuel usage under various conditions, making it essential for optimizing and improving ship energy efficiency.

Sail-assisted technology can reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by saving the energy consumption of ships with wind energy utilization. The distribution characteristics of marine wind resources are critical to the energy-saving effect of sail-assisted ships. However, due to the lack of effective energy-saving evaluation methods for improving the utilization rate of wind energy, a high potential for wind energy utilization still exists. A novel energy-saving evaluation method based on the wind energy resource analysis of typical ship routes is proposed in this paper. First, a three-degree-of-freedom motion model for sail-assisted ships considering the wing sail forces is constructed. Then, a wind resource acquisition and analysis method based on spatial–temporal interpolation is proposed. On this basis, the wind field probability matrix and wing sail force matrix are established. Ultimately, an energy-saving evaluation method for sail-assisted ships on typical routes is proposed by combining the sailing condition of ships. The case study results show that the energy-saving effect of a wing sail-assisted oil tanker that sailed on the China-to-Middle East route was more than 5.37% in 2021 and could reach 9.54% in a single voyage. It is of great significance to realize the popularization and application of sail-assisted technology, thus improving the greenization of the shipping industry.