Recently, CHANG JIANG SAN XIA 1, the 100% battery-powered ship with the largest battery capacity in the world, was successfully delivered in Yichang. Both its plan approval and building survey were implemented by the China Classification Society (CCS).

Recently, CHANG JIANG SAN XIA 1, the 100% battery-powered ship with the largest battery capacity in the world, was successfully delivered in Yichang. Both its plan approval and building survey were implemented by the China Classification Society (CCS). The ship will sail in the reservoir areas of the Gezhouba Dam and Three Gorges Dam in Yangtze River. Compared with conventional diesel-powered ships, this ship can substitute 530t of fuel oil consumption and reduce 1,660t emission of various hazardous gases every year. Thus, it is the ship achieving the zero-emission target in the true sense.

CHANG JIANG SAN XIA 1 is a cruise ship with a total length 100m, the maximum breadth 16.8m, and the capacity 1,300 passengers. It is classed by the CCS and has obtained the notations of “Green Ship”, “COMF (vibration 3, noise 3)”, etc. Its design has achieved several “firsts” across China, even in the world. It adopts the marine power LFP-type battery system that meets the world’s top standard. Equipped with 7.5 MWh marine power battery, it is a 100% battery-powered ship with the largest battery capacity in the world. The ship is one of the MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the PRC) Demonstration Projects in Hi-tech Ship Research as well as one of the MOT (the Ministry of Transport of the People’s Republic of China) Pilot Projects for Building China with Strong Transportation Network. The engineering application research on its marine battery power system has gained approval and support from the MIIT.

At the early stage of the project, CCS Wuhan Rules & Research Institute made full use of the technical support from the greenization and intelligence of inland ships. The technicians of battery power actively communicated with the designer and producer about the technical solutions to solve technical problems and control the risks arising from battery power. During project implementation, the plan approval team proactively kept pace with the ship building progress, efficiently carried out the plan approval and returned the plan in time to meet the requirements of the shipyard for ship building drawings, and solved the technical problems during production in advance.

Since the commencement of the ship building, the marine surveyor team of the CCS Yichang Branch fully considered the technical difficulties and possible risks in construction, for example, the unconventional requirements for assembling, welding, installation and commissioning raised by the important technical indicators/indices of the project, the risks brought by using new technology, the problems in battery installation and system tests, proactively communicated and discussed with the relevant departments for many times, including the Wuhan Plan Approval Center, the Design Institute and the Shipyard, provided training, and helped customers establish optimal solutions, promoted the capability of the Shipyard, and ensured the quality of ship building strongly.

The successful delivery of the ship means the breakthrough of inland ships in greenization and environmental protection as well as intelligent control engineering, and also marks the successful application of the CCS Rules for Inland Green Ships, which will lead the industrial development.