Antwerp Port Pushes Onshore Power for Ships
By Joseph R Fonseca
March 22, 2018
The Antwerp Port Authority aims to create the necessary conditions to supply onshore power for seagoing ships in the port. In order to realize this ambition, it will sign two agreements on Friday, 23 March, during the World Ports Sustainabaility Program-event in Antwerp.
The first agreement will receive the signatures from the Port Authority and Alfaport-VOKA, the representative of the private port community whose support is essential for the project to succeed. Under the second agreement, the names of the Port Authority and 5 technical partners will end up making their expertise available to enable onshore power for seagoing vessels in the port area to be realized in the short term. These are Techelec, Schneider Electric, ABB, Siemens and Actemium.
Impact on local air quality
Onshore power will enable ships moored in the port to shut down their engines and instead to draw power from the electricity grid. Using onshore power in this way will immediately reduce emissions of NOx, CO2 and particulates, thus benefiting the local air quality. With this commitment Antwerp once more confirms its position as the sustainability leader in the Hamburg – Le Havre range.
“Barges have been able to make use of onshore power in the Antwerp port area for some time now. And our own fleet of service vessels has been using onshore power since the beginning of this year,” says Port Authority CEO Jacques Vandermeiren who signed the LoI. “But currently there are still not enough facilities for seagoing ships. This is a pity, as onshore power can make a significant contribution to the sustainability transition planned for our port platform. We therefore see the development of onshore power as a strategic priority for the next few years,” concludes Vandermeiren.
Stephan Vanfraechem, managing director of Alfaport-VOKA: "As a platform from and for the private port sector, we want to bring terminal operators, ship owners and ship’s agents together to find out how we can achieve an effective use of onshore power. Ships are increasingly being built with onshore power facilities, but their use in the ports is still very limited. At the various links in the chain there are still operational, technical and economic questions. We want to discuss and solve this via this project and thus enable a successful roll out.”
