Sterling PlanB (SPBES) has announced that it is now fully certified by DNV under 2020 class rules for commercial vessel batteries.

The ESS (energy storage solutions) provider says it is one of the first to achieve certification to the new standard, which aims to mitigate the risk of fire spreading by eliminating the propagation of thermal runaway within a battery. The approval was given by DNV after nine separate tests were conducted and all the standards met.

Sterling PlanB CEO, Brent Perry, said, “After many months of rigorous testing, we’re proud to have been certified under this new standard. While these standards from DNV are stringent, they are vital for the safety of commercial vessels using energy storage. Our focus at Sterling PlanB has always been on building the safest and most robust energy storage solutions possible. We have never shied away from the fact that there are risks to installing high-capacity lithium batteries and energy storage units on vessels, which must be treated with the same level of scrutiny and risk management as any other risks as sea.”

Following a number of incidents involving thermal runaway, DNV decided to make a major change to its testing standards for the first time since 2015. The certification society’s previous requirements ended testing when battery cells first showed signs of failure, and not combustion. The revisions include demonstrating ‘the clear value of cell-level liquid cooling to prevent adjacent cells from contributing to a fire in a battery’.

The thermal runaway certification achieved by SPBES is to IEC 62619:2017 in conjunction with DNV’s certified testing facility.