THE operator of Jamaica’s sole assembly plant for solar batteries is becoming increasingly frustrated with the shipping industry’s reluctance to transport its products to export markets, which has the effect of limiting the entity’s ability to grow.
Brian Yap Sam, CEO of Green Concepts Jamaica, said the matter surrounds shipping companies’ lack of education about the safety of the lithium batteries his company wants to ship.
“They just lump everything together once they hear the word lithium,” Yap Sam told the Jamaica Observer in an interview and went on to explain that there are three main types of lithium batteries. Lithium-ion batteries, the most popular lithium batteries are considered dangerous by shipping companies, especially after it was determined that a March 2022 fire aboard a cargo ship carrying thousands of electric cars off the coast of Portugal was kept alive by the lithium-ion batteries in the cars.