ICOMIA publishes Assessment Recommendations for Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Compliance

ICOMIA has published a document outlining step-by-step assessment recommendations on compliance for the Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Directive for boats. Directive 2004/108/EC applies to a vast range of equipment encompassing electrical and electronic appliances, systems and installations in addition to complete boats.

By CE marking of a product, (in this case a boat), the manufacturer indicates compliance with all applicable directives. Hence, in addition to meeting the requirements of the RCD, the CE marking of a boat (with an electric installation) does include compliance with the EMC Directive.

The need to produce an assessment recommendation emerged as there were no dedicated standards for EMC testing and assessment on boats. On small products, proof with EMC requirements includes testing for radiation and immunity requirements. This could be carried out in anechoic chambers for EMC testing for example – however on large products such as boats it is unfeasible and in most cases unaffordable for our industry.

Therefore, on large products it is common practice to focus the EMC assessment in ensuring compliance of each component; installing it in accordance to the component manufacturer’s instructions in order to ensure a device assembled from many components (in EMC vocabulary called an apparatus) maintains its EMC performance. Furthermore, the boat manufacturer is required to document, in the technical file, each step of the EMC assessment by listing proof of compliance of the components, wiring diagrams etc.

The ICOMIA ‘EMC Assessment Recommendations’ document is expected to guide boatbuilders step-by-step through this process and is available, for free, from the ICOMIA Online Library.