Bureau Veritas (BV) has developed a set of comprehensive guidelines covering the safe application of fuel cells on ships which could have important environmental and commercial advantages for shipowners and operators.
Fuel cells are electrochemical devices which convert the chemical energy of a fuel, for example hydrogen-rich gases, into direct current power. Until now, their application in shipping has been limited to a few pilot projects, and BV product manager Gijsbert de Jong said the main obstacle to the wider application of fuel cells in shipping is the lack of a comprehensive framework covering the technology.
Mr de Jong added that by developing these new guidelines there would no longer be a lack of a regulatory framework to limit the possibilities for building and testing prototype applications.
"BV's guidelines for the safe application of fuel cells on ships take into account all relevant existing IMO conventions and guidelines, together with a wide range of international non-marine standards," Mr de Jong said.
BV is currently participating in the Green Tug project, an initiative led by the Offshore Ship Designers Group in the Netherlands to produce a new design for a near zero emission hydrogen-powered tug. As well as achieving a significant reduction in exhaust emissions, the fuel cell technology used in the new tug design also helps to increase propulsion efficiency by roughly 70 percent compared to a conventional diesel-direct drive installation.