The International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) Council met in London this week and agreed to set up a Safe Decarbonisation Panel in recognition of the challenge of meeting ambitious targets safely and with the necessary technical underpinning to facilitate early investment.
Chaired by Nick Brown, CEO of Lloyds Register, the 85th session (C85) determined that decarbonisation should be given the same focus as the traditional areas of safety, environment, hull, machinery, survey and cyber.
To help deliver common technical requirements at speed, the panel will immediately convene four project teams to work on leading decarbonisation fuels and technologies. While IACS remains technologically agnostic, extensive discussions with industry indicate that initial efforts should be focused on ammonia, hydrogen, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and batteries. Additionally, the panel will evaluate current work streams at IMO on /ethyl alcohols with a view to undertaking further work as appropriate. Other alternative fuels and technologies will be considered subsequently.
Recognising that efforts to decarbonize need to be collaborative to be successful, the panel has adopted a structured consultative approach so that all stakeholders – fuel manufacturers, technology providers, owners, builders and marine insurance – have multiple and multi-layered opportunities to engage with IACS at strategic, operational and technical levels.
Such close cooperation will help focus prioritization, maximise efficiency and remove duplication and allow for the resulting outputs to be properly targeted either in the form of IACS Resolutions or recommendations or submissions to IMO to support the development of detailed regulations. Collectively, this work will help encourage industry to invest in new /technologies by offering a degree of reassurance that standards are being harmonised and technologies are proven against these requirements.
Commenting, Brown said “IACS’ establishment of a Safe Decarbonisation Panel allows for an over-arching view on new initiatives, whether they be related to the propulsion of the vessels or to the changing nature of the cargoes ships will carry as a result of societal efforts to decarbonise, and so marks a step-change in embedding a safety-focus into this industry-wide effort.”
