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Bureau Veritas joins the International Windship Association

The decarbonisation drive is gearing up to be the defining issue faced by the shipping sector in the coming decades and the industry is searching for low carbon and zero emissions technologies that will deliver on the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) initial strategy of reducing emissions by at least 50% by 2050. One family of technologies that is seeing an upsurge of interest in the industry is wind-assist and primary wind propulsion solutions. Today the Paris headquartered classification society Bureau Veritas (BV) announced that it is joining the International Windship Association (IWSA), the not-for-profit organisation that for the last 5 years has been bringing together wind propulsion projects, research organisations and projects and promoting the wind as a credible, viable and increasingly economic option for commercial vessels.

Panos Koutsourakis Global Technology Leader, Sustainable Ships for Bureau Veritas commenting said:
“A key focus area for BV is supporting safety and new technology to reduce emissions from shipping – and one area we are looking at is wind powered, or wind assisted, shipping. The time is right to further develop the wind propulsion sector and for us to help in supporting the development of safe performance objectives. The extensive work that IWSA has been doing in this field makes it the natural choice to work with and to support.”

BV’s membership will bring a wealth of experience to IWSA and fits well with the association’s longer term development approach, with the establishment of regional wind propulsion ‘centres of excellence’ or ‘hubs’ around the world. The first one, IWSA Europe – Atlantic, was set up over a year ago in Nantes, France and has been busy clustering together wind propulsion projects, ship builders, engineering and design companies along with maritime associations and regional government. This will be followed this year with clusters in the North Sea & Baltic, Pacific and North America. Nantes is an important centre for BV, where it has a presence focused on providing engineering services through Bureau Veritas Solutions.

Gavin Allwright, Secretary General of IWSA states; “We are delighted to welcome Bureau Veritas aboard at such a critical time in the industry. BV recognises that low carbon technologies such as wind that can deliver significant fuel savings on retrofits and even better performance as fully optimised new build primary wind vessels is a vital component in the race to decarbonise shipping and we are looking forward to working together to develop the sector further.”

There have already been big strides forward over the last couple of years, with the emergence of companies engaging, testing and installing wind propulsion systems; Maersk, Renault, MOL, Airbus, Viking Lines, Drax, Ultrabulk, Chantiers De L’Atlantique, Wallenius Marine, Fehn, CMCS, Enercon, Blue Planet Shipping are just some of the names involved. This pace of development is slated to continue, with an EU commissioned report on the wind propulsion market in 2017 predicting up to over 10,000 wind propulsion installations by 2030.

Panos Koutsourakis, commenting further, said, “We have been looking at wind with clients for some time now and we are delighted to join IWSA. We are able to provide the independent testing, inspection and certification services to help stakeholders address both the safety and performance issues involved.”
Source: Bureau Veritas

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