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Cosco's new 20,000 TEU vessel first boxship to achieve cyber certification

COSCO Shipping Lines' newly delivered 20,000 TEU MV Cosco Shipping Aries has become the first containership in the world to have an energy management system that has been cyber-certified by classification society Lloyd's Register (LR). The ship was built by Nantong Cosco KHI Ship Engineering Co, Ltd (NACKS).

Cosco Shipping Container Line, safety & technology department, general manager Shi Yongxin was quoted as saying in a report by New York's Marine Log: "We have always attached great importance to a cyber enabled fleet in order to enhance fleet management, reduce energy consumption and control emissions.

"In the field of cyber enabled ships, LR has great research findings and well-established requirements. During the construction of the MV Cosco Shipping Aries, we were very fortunate to have the great support from LR and, finally, successfully obtain the first AL3 level descriptive note for ultra large containership in the world," he said.

The Accessibility Level AL3 is defined by LR as "cyber access for autonomous/remote monitoring and control (onboard permission is required and onboard override is possible)."

The ship complies with the revised version of LR's cyber-enabled ships ShipRight procedure, issued in December 2017, and its energy management system has received LR's cyber-enabled ship (CES) descriptive note "Cyber AL3 Secure Perform."

According to LR, "cyber-enabled systems" are considered to be systems installed onboard ships that would conventionally be controlled by the ship's crew. The functionality provided by cyber-enabled systems can range from simple remote monitoring with a crew onboard through to a fully autonomous vessel without a crew onboard.

Consequently, as the risks can vary considerably, the assessment of cyber-enabled systems requires a risk-based approach to identify the hazards introduced by cyber-enablement and to mitigate the associated risks.