(www.MaritimeCyprus.com) According to the International Energy Association (IEA), the number of registered electric vehicles (EVs) has been rapidly increasing worldwide in recent years and is only expected to continue increasing at such a pace for the near future. This, in turn, has led to calls by various interested parties for the establishment of regulations to
ensure the safe maritime transportation of such vehicles. In April 2022, the Maritime Safety
Committee (MSC) of the International Maritime Organization decided to discuss the development of appropriate and mandatory safety regulations for the transportation of such vehicle.
Although such regulations are, in principle, seen as being needed as soon as possible, the formal process of establishing new international regulations is generally time consuming and the IMO’s MSC has stated that it hopes to complete this process sometime between 2024 to 2027. Some national and regional governmental organizations, on the other hand, have taken the initiative and published their own guidelines related to the transportation of such vehicles ahead of the IMO; for example, the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) published its Guidance on the Carriage of AFVs in Ro-Ro Spaces in May 2022 for alternative fueled vehicles (AFV) being transported in the ro-ro spaces of cargo and passenger ships, while the United Kingdom’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) published its Marine Guidance Note (MGN) 653 (M) in July 2022 for electric vehicles on board passenger roll-on/roll-off (ro-ro) ferries.
These guidelines, however, are generally not unified in content and are not applied globally, and it is expected to still be a number of years before a common global guideline can be established and implemented.
Furthermore, in addition to safety regulations being developed at the national, regional and
international levels, some vehicle carrier owners and management companies have been developing and implementing their own safety measures for the transportation of such vehicle.
In light of the above situation, ClassNK decided to independently publish its own Guidelines for the Safe Transportation of Electric Vehicles (hereinafter referred to as “Guidelines”) in order to provide guidance to its clients regarding the characteristics of electric vehicle fires and the additional safety measures that can be implemented to help prevent such fires.
This Guidelines provides vehicle carrier owners and management companies with useful information and a framework regarding voluntary and advanced fire safety measures for the maritime transportation of electric vehicles.
The outline of technical service supplied by this society is specified in Chapter 1 to Chapter 3. As the services, this society may objectively evaluate advanced safety measures provided by the ship owners and management companies of vehicle carriers and affix the relevant class notations to vehicle carriers which are taken advanced fire safety measures in accordance with this guidelines.
The explanation for characteristics of electric vehicle fires is specified in Chapter 5, with aim of sharing necessary knowledge for establishing fire measures. Furthermore, the explanation of the guidelines for such fires including example measures are specified in Chapter 6 based on the characteristics of electric vehicle fires specified in Chapter 5.
For more details, you can download below the ClassNK Guidelines for the Safe Transportation of Electric Vehicles:
Source: ClassNK
