Regulating battery transport

As lithium batteries become increasingly prevalent, the risks involved in shipping them must be managed. So what rules are being developed to keep everyone safe?

IATA global head of cargo Brendan Sullivan believes that the risks associated with transporting lithium batteries are on the rise.

He points out that increasing volumes of these batteries are being carried around the world as more companies utilise them to power their products.

Meanwhile, the energy density of the batteries is increasing as the technology develops and more can be stored in each unit.

To help combat these concerns, Sullivan says it is important that regulations are developed by the United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), rather than by individual countries or organisations.

“Those concerns need to be addressed and we do that through ICAO because we want a globalised framework and a system that works everywhere. We try not to do something just from an airline or industry side without the regulators,” says Sullivan.

“It is always a balance to make sure we don’t make too many changes to regulations, making them difficult for shippers to cope with. There were a number of changes that were agreed recently that will be put in place.”

Last year ICAO announced several new rules that should help air cargo to mitigate the risks of lithium battery transport. Sullivan says that the main changes centre on how much charge the batteries should carry during transportation.

At the moment, lithium batteries that are transported on their own are required to be shipped with a charge of no greater than 30% of their capacity. This 30% requirement is now also being extended to lithium batteries being transported alongside equipment if they exceed a rating of 2.7 watt hours.

Meanwhile, for batteries contained within equipment, it is recommended that they are charged to no more than 30% of their capacity. This is a recommendation, rather than a requirement, because the presence of equipment is believed to result in a relatively lower transport risk. Also, some equipment does not have a charge indicator, making it difficult to comply with a charge limit.

The new rules will be included in the ICAO Technical Instructions for 2025 but there will be a transition period, meaning they will not be enforceable until January1, 2026.

ICAO has also adopted a new shipping name for vehicles powered by lithium batteries. Previously, they could be shipped as ‘battery-powered vehicles’ without specifying whether lithium batteries were being used. Sullivan explains that having a ‘vehicles powered by lithium batteries’ shipping label will allow operators to undertake a more granular safety risk assessment to consider the particular hazard posed by these vehicles.

With the new label in place, ICAO is now examining whether there should be a limit applied to how much charge lithium batteries in vehicles should have. For large electric vehicles, it is believed that conditions could be implemented to require that the battery gauge does not indicate more than 25% of total capacity.

Photo: IM Imagery/ Shutterstock

Supply chain accountability

Sullivan also says governments should do more to hold shippers accountable for the transport of lithium batteries. “Governments need to hold shippers accountable when they break the rules, particularly rogue shippers who are doing this arguably on purpose,” he says.

“There definitely needs to be adequate regulations for each component of the supply chain. People who are injecting dangerous goods into the supply chain need to be held to a certain standard according to the regulations and that wasn’t necessarily the case in every country and every jurisdiction.”

Elsewhere, he says that IATA is working with ICAO and others to re-work ICAO Annex18 of The Safe Transport of Dangerous Goods by Air regulations, to make it clearer where different supply chain players have oversight of the transport of dangerous goods and what rules and regulations apply to them.

“Work on it will continue in the first 
quarter of this year to fine-tune those exact requirements and language and then it will go through the ICAO voting process,” explains Sullivan.

IATA is also continuing to work with ULD firms, industry and regulators to develop a standard for lithium battery fire-resistant containers.

Draft standards have been developed and will go through voting at standards development organisation SAE International this year, at which point aviation regulators that have been involved in developing the standards can put them into regulation.

“It is starting with a minimum standard to say that this is the threshold we want ULDs to be tested to if you are going to call them lithium battery fire-resistant containers,” says Sullivan.