German classification society claims container vessel certification first
Hamburg-based classification society Germanischer Lloyd (GL) says it has issued the first-ever IMO Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) certification for a large container vessel, Hapag Lloyds Vienna Express.
The news comes as other classification societies, including just this week Frances BV, are developing their own indices. GL, however, is working to IMOs voluntary EEDI guidelines, MEPC.1/Circ.681 and 682.
In a statement GL says that the EEDI value achieved by the Hapag-Lloyd vessel is significantly better than the present average vessel of this size (based on Lloyds database), underlining the high energy efficiency of the vessels design.
GL says that the EEDI certification shows that leading members of the maritime industry are actively pursuing measures to improve the energy efficiency of merchant vessels and thus reducing the CO2-emissions considerably.
The classification society notes that IMOs recent focus has been on the EEDI which is intended to become a mandatory newbuilding standard. The EEDI compares theoretical CO2 emissions and transport work of a vessel (gCO2/(t*nm)) and will eventually be benchmarked against an IMO-set requirement.
As a ships EEDI represents the basic energy efficiency of a design, it can be used as a benchmark within an operators fleet as well as for a comparison against a competitors fleet. Benchmarking against the ships operations is possible as well. GL says: This means that the determination of the EEDI also makes sense for ships already in service, provided all data for a complete EEDI Technical File are available.
GL says that in course of certifying the vessel EEDI it has found that some issues need more attention and have been forwarded to the German flag state administration for possible consideration at future IMO meetings.
Source:gl
