South Korea’s the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries announced, that it has established tentative standards for ship hydrogen fuel cell equipment to enable actual hydrogen shipbuilding in Korea.
As informed, global shipbuilders are trying hard to develop efficient eco-friendly fuel-based vessels to reduce their dependency on fossil fuels after the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a U.N. maritime safety agency, adopted compulsory measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from vessels by 30 percent by 2025.
The southern port city of Ulsan is the center of South Korea’s hydrogen fuel-cell vessel industry. The city was selected as a demonstration zone for hydrogen ships in 2019 to have related regulations exempted for a short time to check the efficacy of equipment and technology. In 2021, a demonstration project was launched to build a universal platform for hydrogen and electric-powered ships by 2025.
The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said that a new set of revised standards for the construction of fuel cell vessels took effect on April 4. There were test standards for test fuel cell ships but the standards did not apply to existing shipbuilding facilities, making it hard for shipbuilders to construct and commercialize new fuel cell-powered vessels using their facilities and equipment.
As explained, building a fuel cell vessel is very different from building large or small-sized ships because the storage tank for hydrogen, the main fuel source, is very bulky. Ammonia is regarded as the next-generation maritime fuel as it can be stably stored in a liquid form and broken down to produce hydrogen through a process called “cracking.” However, if a vessel is to carry ammonia as the main fuel, then it would need to have an on-board cracking unit to convert ammonia into hydrogen. This would become a big disadvantage for fishing and cargo ships as there will be less space for cargo.
