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Karin Rix Holländer
Executive Assistant MA
The Port of Esbjerg has joined forces with nine other North European ports to find solutions to making the growing cruise industry greener. During the three-year project, the Port of Esbjerg will focus on finding a practical and commercial way to supply cruise ships with green energy.
The number of cruise ship passengers is growing steadily worldwide. The OECD recently predicted that the cruise ship market will grow 3.3 percent by 2030. In light of this development, the Port of Esbjerg has joined forces with nine other North European ports in an EU Interreg project to examine how the ports can help cruise ship operators become greener and more sustainable. The project lead partner is the Hamburg Port Authority, and the project budget is EUR 2.9 million.
“The rapid growth of the cruise industry makes it interesting for the ports, but the industry's growth poses certain challenges as well, particularly in relation to neighbouring areas. All ports face these same challenges, so the idea is to collaborate on finding solutions. In an ideal world, cruise ships should meet the same standards and rules in every port,” explains Ingo Fehrs, Senior Adviser Port Strategy of the Hamburg Port Authority.
“At the project’s closing conference in 2019, it is my hope that we will be able to present a report giving a detailed account of ways the ports can help enhance sustainability in the cruise shipping sector. We will also be looking at areas where more regulation is needed, e.g. from the IMO or the EU.”
Attractive market for the Port of Esbjerg
Currently, between five and ten cruise ships per year call at the Port of Esbjerg, typically on their way between a destination in Germany and a destination in Norway.
“The upswing in the cruise market makes this an attractive market to the Port of Esbjerg,. We are aware of our limitations where the cruise market is concerned, but we could probably play a greater role than we do today,” says Jesper Bank, Sales Director at the Port of Esbjerg.
During the course of the project, the Port of Esbjerg will carry out a study and technical analysis and prepare a business plan for supplying cruise ships with green energy, including natural gas and onshore power based on wind energy.
“The Port of Esbjerg does not have the potential to accommodate as many cruise ships over the course of the season as the ports in Hamburg or Copenhagen do. That’s why we have to develop flexible technical solutions and new business models to achieve synergies with other vessels also interested in using green fuel,” Mr Bank explains.
“We will be looking at flexible supply facilities, for instance mobile ones that can be moved from one section of the port to another. We will also be looking at facilities that can be used to supply different types of ships – large cruise ships, wind turbine industry ships and the Fanø ferry.”
During the project, the Port of Esbjerg will also examine how ship supply facilities can be integrated with facilities for landside users of green energy such as buses running on LNG fuel and passenger cars using bio fuel and natural gas.
Relevant for all types of ships
While the project focuses on cruise ships, Mr Bank believes that the results can be applied to many other kinds of ships as well. This is an advantage for the Port of Esbjerg, which receives many different types of ship, including supply ships, wind turbine vessels, drilling rigs and ferries.
“The traffic in our port is among the most intensive in Denmark. This means that we can create wide-reaching solutions. We are able to examine the commercial and technical possibilities in terms of several vessel types. We also have a unique opportunity to come up with solutions that can be widely used, hopefully by other ports, too,” he says, stressing that the timing of the project is good.
Shortly after the ten ports met at the opening conference in Hamburg on 27 October this year, the environmental committee of the UN’s International Maritime Organisation set the implementation date for the new global sulphur emission regulations to 2020. The new regulations impose stricter requirements on the shipping industry and lower the cap on sulphur content of marine fuels from 3.5 percent to 0.5 percent.
“The new rules will affect not only cruise ships, but the entire maritime sector. The Port of Esbjerg’s supply project links several sectors together, which means we can help create solutions that can be applied to a range of different vessel types.”
This is a translation of the Danish article published in Port of Esbjerg Magazine 4, 2016.
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