Energy Efficiency Design Index

In July 2011 the sixty-second session of the IMO's Marine Environment Protection Committee adopted amendments to MARPOL Annex VI to include a new chapter 4 making the Energy Efficiency Design Index mandatory.  The new regulations will enter into force on 1 January 2013 and will require all new ships of 400 gt and above to have an attained EEDI that does not exceed a maximum allowable required EEDI for the type and size of vessel according to a timetable laid out in the regulations. 

New ships are defined as those:

with a building contract placed on or after 1 January 2013; or

in the absence of a building contract, the keel of which is laid or which is at a similar stage of construction on or after 1 July 2013; or

regardless of the building, contract or keel laying date, the delivery is on or after 1 July 2015.

The allowable EEDI values will reduce in three 10 percent increments for new ships built over a period of 12 years.  For tankers the lower cut–off size for compliance with a required EEDI is 4,000 DWT and vessels of between 4,000 and 20,000 DWT will be exempt from the first phase of implementation (2013-2014) and thereafter will have a slightly more lenient reduction schedule (on a sliding scale according to size) for the required EEDI.  Ships with diesel-electric propulsion, turbine propulsion or hybrid propulsion systems are exempt until such time as the method of calculation of attained EEDI for these categories of ships is established.

Cubic Capacity Correction Factor

Having determined that chemical tankers were likely to be disadvantaged by being classified with oil tankers and therefore subject to the same reference line, IPTA proposed that a cubic capacity correction factor should be included in the EEDI formula for chemical tankers.  This proposal was accepted and the Guidelines for the Calculation of the Attained EEDI, which were adopted by the sixty-third session of the MEPC in March 2012, include reference to the cubic capacity correction factor.  The Committee clarified that this will apply to all vessels with a Certificate of Fitness.

It should be noted that the regulations provide for a review of the status of technological developments to allow for amendments to the time periods, the EEDI reference line parameters for relevant ship types and reduction rates if deemed necessary.  In addition the new Chapter 4 allows an Administration to waive compliance with the EEDI requirements for up to four years after the above mentioned dates.

The text of the amendments to MARPOL Annex VI, together with the Guidelines for the Calculation of the Attained EEDI, can be found within the Members' Area.