Bureau Veritas joins the Maritime Battery Forum

Being part of the Forum will enable BV to collaborate with other companies and organisations from different parts of the battery value chain and give it the opportunity to join key partnerships, such as the Battery Safety Joint Industry Project (JIP) to help accelerate the adoption of on-board battery systems.

“Batteries are part of the growing list of solutions to achieve carbon-neutral shipping,” said Paul Delouche, director of strategy & advanced services at Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore.

”Being a member will enable BV to expand our expertise in this fast-moving area. Our role as a class society is to bring together different stakeholders and help find solutions for the industry. The Forum is a perfect opportunity for us to help accelerate the technologies and their integration onboard large vessels.”

Unique opportunity

BV considers batteries and hybrid electric propulsion as relevant decarbonisation solutions for a number of cases in the shipping industry, but it acknowledges that challenges remain to be addressed on the key aspects of safety, cost, installation and battery lifecycle. 

To this end, it has created Rules for battery-powered ships, which are updated every six months to reflect the latest technical and safety developments.

BV currently offers three notations for battery-powered vessels: ’Battery System’ covers the safe installation and use of batteries, ’Electric Hybrid’ is for vessels using a combination of diesel engines and batteries and the ’Electric Hybrid Prepared’ notation is for ships designed to have batteries installed in the future.