PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
There are at least 3 named companies in this thread who don't impose ludicrous conditions for LFD installs.
Self install of LifePo4 and what requirements for insurance (UK)
- Thread starter davethedog
- Start date
Sea Change
Well-Known Member
I could only recall Craftinsure. To save me and everybody else the tedium of wading through a 15 page thread, could you share the names of the other companies?
PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
That would mean i'd need to wade through
I can remember one, Porthcawl insurance, that's who i am with.
aqua_sax
Well-Known Member
And I was going to say but others have got there first...
"...and there are at least 15 pages in this thread, which makes finding them awkward."
So far, we have two: Craftinsure and Porthcawl Insurance. They differ somewhat, in that the former has a minimalist quote form, while the latter's form goes on forever, and then some. The former only introduces various well known bogey clauses (eg survey requirements, single handed hours limits etc) after it has provided a quote which you have to agree to before taking out the insurance.
We (or rather, in practice, I) could start another thread listing lithium friendly and unfriendly insurers, with the original post updated to add extra insurers as they get named (and shamed) in subsequent posts - if sufficient people think that is worthshile.
jakew009
Well-Known Member
Please could you share who your current insurer are (and who the underwriters are if known?)
mjcp
Well-Known Member
GJW (renewed after their take over earlier this year)
Insurance booklet, "Yacht insurance"
General conditions:
Clause 11:
You exercise reasonable care to make and keep the Vessel in a seaworthy condition. It is up to You to ensure that all measures are taken to maintain Your Vessel
Clause 12:
You do not make any significant structural alteration or addition to the Vessel without notifying Us.
Clause 13:
Any liquid petroleum gas conversion is carried out by a professionally qualified and trained person and in accord with all requirements and standards and all other recommendations and that it will be maintained in accordance with the manufacturer’s recommendations.
Clause 14:
"Any lithium batteries on board must be stored and used in accordance with the manufacturers recommendations and must not be left unattended whilst charging. In addition, there must be a fully operational lithium specific hand held fire extinguisher on board."
Note:
- They specifically require a "professionally qualified and trained person" to do LPG work
- They do not make an specification in regards electrical work (inference, it's covered by Clause 11: reasonable care to keep seaworthy and if you were to replace your diesel sail with a battery propulsion system, that would trigger Clause 12 where they may ask you for more info)
- They have a lithium specific clause and again, make no reference to "professionally qualified and trained person", only that you follow the "manufacturer's recommendations".
Also note: the Insurance Product Information booklet states "What is not covered". That list includes "Defective workmanship".
Inference: If you hire a Muppet to do you conversion, they will not cover it (you claim from the Muppet). If the Muppet is you - that's your own risk! (and goes back to Clause 11, "Reasonable care" - are you competent to do the conversion?)
M
Insurance booklet, "Yacht insurance"
General conditions:
Clause 11:
You exercise reasonable care to make and keep the Vessel in a seaworthy condition. It is up to You to ensure that all measures are taken to maintain Your Vessel
Clause 12:
You do not make any significant structural alteration or addition to the Vessel without notifying Us.
Clause 13:
Any liquid petroleum gas conversion is carried out by a professionally qualified and trained person and in accord with all requirements and standards and all other recommendations and that it will be maintained in accordance with the manufacturer’s recommendations.
Clause 14:
"Any lithium batteries on board must be stored and used in accordance with the manufacturers recommendations and must not be left unattended whilst charging. In addition, there must be a fully operational lithium specific hand held fire extinguisher on board."
Note:
- They specifically require a "professionally qualified and trained person" to do LPG work
- They do not make an specification in regards electrical work (inference, it's covered by Clause 11: reasonable care to keep seaworthy and if you were to replace your diesel sail with a battery propulsion system, that would trigger Clause 12 where they may ask you for more info)
- They have a lithium specific clause and again, make no reference to "professionally qualified and trained person", only that you follow the "manufacturer's recommendations".
Also note: the Insurance Product Information booklet states "What is not covered". That list includes "Defective workmanship".
Inference: If you hire a Muppet to do you conversion, they will not cover it (you claim from the Muppet). If the Muppet is you - that's your own risk! (and goes back to Clause 11, "Reasonable care" - are you competent to do the conversion?)
M
PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
Been posted before, it's a ludicrous set of conditions, especially clause 14.
So, your tablet is on charge and you go for a shower, the boat isn't insured if you forget to unplug it.
Every time you leave the boat you have to climb the mast and cover the tiny solar panel that charges the battery in your wireless wind transducer ?
Sea Change
Well-Known Member
Agree, at a minimum they could specify a wH limit before batteries become worth thinking about. Almost everything has a lithium battery in it now, from solar garden lights to headphones, etc.
And no distinction at all made between different chemistries.
lustyd
Well-Known Member
I’m not sure a Wh limit would help, if a lithium battery catches fire it will spread as they cause enough heat to burn most things near them. There’s a video online of a dog biting a phone and it burns the house to the ground.
I don’t have a better suggestion, but capacity doesn’t change much. Even airpods would have enough heat to set their case ablaze
I don’t have a better suggestion, but capacity doesn’t change much. Even airpods would have enough heat to set their case ablaze
st599
Well-Known Member
A useful starting point I found when starting to use LiFePO4 at work was the Underwriters' Laboratory Li-ion fire safety guidance from their course. Whilst US based, I'd assume that European insurers probably have similar guidance.
One of the issues they list with LiFePO4 is that whilst they're much more stable than other Li-ion chemistries, if you do get one to enter themal runaway they produce a larger volume of explosive gas and a larger proportion of toxic gas for a given Wh. So there's guidance on placement and ventilation. There's also guidance on what can cause thermal runaway and how to minimise the risk.
One of the issues they list with LiFePO4 is that whilst they're much more stable than other Li-ion chemistries, if you do get one to enter themal runaway they produce a larger volume of explosive gas and a larger proportion of toxic gas for a given Wh. So there's guidance on placement and ventilation. There's also guidance on what can cause thermal runaway and how to minimise the risk.
aqua_sax
Well-Known Member
You may be interested in having a look at the academic paper I linked to a while back. Here's the link again: Thermal Runaway Characteristics and Gas Composition Analysis of Lithium-Ion Batteries with Different LFP and NCM Cathode Materials under Inert Atmosphere.
lustyd
Well-Known Member
Still less gas than an overcharging lead acid though so still irrelevant even if you somehow did get one to thermal runaway, which nobody seems to know how to do
aqua_sax
Well-Known Member
I'm inclined to agree, which is why I linked to the paper again, because that reports experimental data, not opinions. It also gives rate of gas production (per Ah of battery capacity) and composition, so you can even do some fancy calculations of how big your hydrogen cloud will be, and whether you really are another Hindenburg in the waiting.
That said, there is perhaps another important difference between LA and LiFePO4 hydrogen production: LA batteries do it rather more slowly over a longer period, perhaps allowing more dispersion. LiFePO4 batteries need a lot of provocation, but when they do gas they gas relatively fast, into an already hot, possibly burning, environment.
For the avoidance of doubt the above statements are observations, not part of some for or against LiFePO4 house batteries argument. I don't have an agenda, because I still haven't decided whether to fit a LiFePO4 house battery, though it is fair to say I might be leaning that way. I'm going to have a chat with some people at the Southampton Boat Show and see what they have to say.
lustyd
Well-Known Member
I don’t agree with this at all. LA battery gassing is directly proportional to the current applied, as its just electrolysis. If you do the maths it doesn’t take much effort to produce enormous quantities of gas. That’s under normal conditions with a normal charger and a working battery and a less than smart charger.
The LFP has to enter unicorn territory before any gas is produced at all, and the paper acknowledges this. I’d be amazed if anyone could cause thermal runaway of an LFP on purpose with just the equipment they have on board in the first place, let alone by accident without knowing it was happening.
st599
Well-Known Member
Thanks - I should have phrased mine better, but it does state that you get a larger volume of flammable gas (even though the overall output is lower)
from the perspective of thermal runaway gas composition, the hazard ranking is LFP > NCM811 > NCM622 > NCM523 > NCM9 0.5 0.5.
From a more recent meta-analysis from Imperial, St Andrees and Uni of Sheffield: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352152X24008739
While NMC batteries release more gas than LFP, LFP batteries are significantly more toxic than NMC ones in absolute terms. Toxicity varies with SOC, for NMC batteries the contaminated volume doubles from 0% to 100% SOC while for LFP in halves. The composition of off-gas on average is very similar between NMC and LFP cells, but LFP batteries have greater H2 content while NMC batteries have a greater CO content. To assess the fire hazard the LFL limit of the off-gasses is compared. The LFL for LFP and NMC are 6.2% and 7.9% (in an inert atmosphere) respectively. Given the LFL and the median off-gas volumes produced, LFP cells breach the LFL in a volume 18% smaller than NMC batteries. Hence LFP presents a greater flammability hazard even though they show less occurrence of flames in cell TR tests.
It's worth noting that they're only looking at gas composition, not the ease or difficulty of causing thermal runaway. (LFP is much more stable than NMC)
The Underwriter's Laboratory videos on LFP and other Li-Ion fires are worth a watch, even though they work for the US companies, as the terms and conditions that people are mentioning being added to insurance requirements are sort of matching mitigations they give in the videos. They also show experiments with different types of extinguisher. For the boat I'm usually on, I think we'd need to re-site our battery bank.
Certainly I've now worked at quite a few events that have replaced diesel generation with LiFePO4 banks and the rules sound very familiar. No energy storage is perfectly safe, personally I think that the risks for LiFePO4 can be mitigated down to similar to LA - but they're not a drop in replacement as some articles seem to say.
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aqua_sax
Well-Known Member
OK fair enough, my rather limited observation was based on the few times I have seen LA batteries gassing. The electrolyte looked like tired Perrier water.
Thanks, more useful stuff (its open access, not behind a paywall). Will also have a look at the videos.
There still remains a possibility the narrow boat fire/explosion was a 'unicorn event'. Hidden fire on an unoccupied boat heats LiFePO4 batteries enough (only needs 200 degrees C or so) to cause off-gassing which then gets ignited by the already present fire. I am not saying that is what happened, just that it may fit with what we know. If it does turn out to be a unicorn event, then by definition it is vanishingly rare. At least, until it happens again.
Please remember, I do not have an agenda, I simply want to answer a question: shall I or shall I not fit a LiFePO4 house battery to my boat?
Fredd
Member
I have stated it already in this thread in answer to aqua sax but I’ll say it again, Craftinsure . Don’t know the underwriters , I would have to check the policy docs which are not to hand ,but they are UK based . Aqua sax contacted Craftinsure UK and got the same answer as me, that they are happy to insure LFP as well as a DIY install assuming it’s all done correctly.
I don’t know what the connection is between Craftinsure IRL and UK but I got notice last week that the company here has been acquired by a large nationwide insurance group ( which in turn is part of a UK group ) so it will be interesting to see if that changes anything when it comes to renewal .
jakew009
Well-Known Member
I find it interesting that both Craft Insure and GJW Direct are owned by the same people yet Craft Insure seem to have a relatively sensible LiFePO4 policy whilst GJW’s is incomprehensible.
aqua_sax
Well-Known Member
I have said it elsewhere, but can be even more bizarre. Craftinsure (lithium friendly) and Haven Knox Johnston (Specialist) (lithium unfriendly) use the same underwriters, HCC International Insurance Company plc (‘HCCII’), trading as Tokio Marine HCC. The difference appears to be the policy, and/or the 'man in the middle', the intermediary between the broker and underwriter. But how can the same underwriter assessing the same risk come to such different policy wordings? What does that tell us about how underwriters assess risk?
