EU AWARDS NEARLY € 25 MILLION IN FUNDING TO ‘GREEN PORT PROJECT’ ROTTERDAM
International consortium works together to promote smarter, zero-emission transport in ports
An international alliance of 45 companies, knowledge institutes and port authorities, headed by the Port of Rotterdam Authority, has been awarded nearly € 25 million in EU funding. The consortium will be using this grant to execute 10 pilot projects and demonstration projects that focus on sustainable and smart logistics in port operations. In the years ahead, the transport sector is expected to transition to clean power. At this moment it is not clear yet which types it will be adopting exactly, and for which modes of transport.
A number of renewable fuels and energy carriers are currently being developed further, including green hydrogen, large electric batteries, ammonia and bio-LNG. Each of these has its own advantages and challenges, with one option seeming more suited to shipping, another to applications within the port or transport to destinations in the hinterland. Some links in the chain from production to consumption have already been tested; others have not. The consortium’s broad, international research programme primarily focuses on those aspects in the use of new fuels and energy carriers that have not yet been tested in practice. This includes production, transport, storage, distribution (fuels) and charging (electric power).
The project comes out of a collaboration between the port authorities of Rotterdam, DeltaPort (Germany), HAROPA PORT (France: Le Havre, Rouen, Paris) and Sines (Portugal), in partnership with 10 research institutes and over 30 companies in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Portugal, Denmark and Sweden. The research project has been given the acronym MAGPIE: sMArt Green Ports as Integrated Efficient multimodal hubs. The research project will run for five years.
MARIN contributes in the project to the development, evaluation and offshore pilot of an shore powered mooring buoy. Mooring buoys will offer electric power to vessels in the anchorage area. This avoids the use of on-board generators and allows to charge on-board battery packs.
Disclaimer: This communication should not be regarded under any circumstances as a formal commitment by the CINEA to provide financial support, as this depends on the satisfactory and timely conclusion of grant agreement preparation and on the internal completion of the formal selection process.
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