How I can travel with a 576Wh single‑cell lithium‑ion battery (or 12Ah with 48V) from mainland France to Guadeloupe in the French West Indies?

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Wh (watt-hours, i.e. watts multiplied by hours), not W/h (watts per hour, which is meaningless).

The IATA rules for lithium batteries transported by passengers are here: https://www.iata.org/contentassets/6fea26dd84d24b26a7a1fd5788561d6e/passenger-lithium-battery.pdf

Clearly you are way beyond what is allowed, you need to ship them as cargo (or make many separate trips if you have many individual cells each under the limits).

Cargo regulations are here: https://www.iata.org/contentassets/05e6d8742b0047259bf3a700bc9d42b9/lithium-battery-guidance-document-2021.pdf

It’s clearly possible to ship Lithium batteries, you just have to follow the rules. Individual carriers (DHL, UPS, FedEx, DPD…) have their own rules which derive from the IATA rules, you’ll have to check with each one of them for specifics, but mostly it involves:

  • batteries being certified
  • the state of load of the batteries
  • careful packaging according to the rules
  • correct labelling
  • prior notification
  • use of the appropriate service

Such batteries may not necessarily be able to be carried on passenger services which also carry cargo, so depending on the destination this may be an issue (that’s why prior notification is important). Most carriers have dedicated cargo flights to mainland France, I’m not sure they have the same to Guadeloupe.

It’s also quite possible that such cargo will only be transported for business customers rather than individuals.

Note that the fact that it’s still France doesn’t change much. The issue is air transport (anywhere in mainland France they could get by truck if air transport wasn’t available — this is obviously not an option for Guadeloupe).

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