Key accomplishments – situation analysis

Existing COLD IRONING infrastructure in the Nordic Region:

New on-shore power supply (OPS) plants are being prepared in Kristiansand.

Norway is leading in terms of electrification on the roads and for domestic ferries and cargo ships. A general high demand for further capacity being installed exists.

A number of ports and electricity providers establish new enterprises who own and operate the OPS as a separate business unit.

The OPS plant in Bergen was completed by the end of 2020 and is currently Europe’s largest OPS plant with a capacity of 50MVA covering and supplying cruise ships and offshore/supply vessels.

There is a range of other OPS projects underway in Norway and more are expected to come.

ENOVA has been a great and very important catalyst for the uptake and implementation of OPS technologies and for installation of a shore-based OPS infrastructure in Norway.

Based on data gathered (unpublished) and kindly shared by Transportstyrelsen in Sweden, the following nine ports in Sweden are currently offering OPS in specified quays (see Table 1). Some of the nine ports, namely Gothenburg, Helsingborg, Stockholm, Trelleborg and Ystad, have OPS installations in various quays. In total, there is OPS availability at around 40 quays, and some of them have available more than one connection point.

Table 1: Existing OPS in Swedish ports (Transportstyrelsen, 2020).                                       

The ferry Ellen has for several years been in operation on a 60-minute crossing between Ærø and Fyn.

Molslinjen is currently building a fully electrical ferry for the 12 minutes and very busy Fanø – Esbjerg crossing. Furthermore Molslinjen has invested in OPS plants in Århus for four ferries (delivery 2020).

DFDS and Copenhagen Malmo Port have submitted a tender for OPS for the two Oslo–Copenhagen cruise ferries. Installation expected to be completed during 2021.

Copenhagen / CMP plans to establish OPS for cruise ships by end of 2021. The City of Copenhagen has granted a loan of some DKK 79 million for this project.

The ports of Aarhus and Copenhagen have in their capacity as essential EU ports been granted funding of some DKK 60 million from the EU Infrastructure Fund, Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).

The Port of Esbjerg has in February 2021 taken OPS into use and thereby providing electricity for the large offshore construction vessels. It has been well received by this category of clients.

The Port of Elsinore has received financial support from the town municipality and the ferry owners and operators ForSea are running a very busy service with several ships using OPS on the 20-minute crossing with less than 10 minutes of charging time at every port call.

Regulatory matters: Denmark has a special scheme, due to Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2015/993 of 19 June 2015 on permission for Denmark to apply a reduced tax rate on electricity

The Port of Helsinki has built a new onshore power connection for the Stockholm traffic at the Olympia Terminal berth. It is estimated that this OPS facility makes it possible to reduce the climate emissions generated while ships are berthed by as much as 50–80 percent. OPS facilities are also being planned in Helsinki for the berths next to West Terminal 2 at the West Harbour. The OPS will primarily serve vessels that stay berthed overnight. Onshore power connections are also planned for Vuosaari Harbour and the cruise quays of Hernesaari.

As of December 2020 there are no high-voltage onshore power connections in Iceland. However three ports are working on projects that will be installed in the next 1-3 years. Charging infrastructure for a newbuild hybrid diesel-electric ferry (the first in Iceland) was set up in Vestmannaeyjar in 2019.

Associated Icelandic Ports (includes Port of Reykjavík) have plans for several connections at different quays that should be in operation 2021-2024, for cargo vessels as well as for cruise ships.

For the Port of Akureyri (second largest city in the country) feasibility studies for 3-4 MW and 18-20 MW installations were done in 2018. The current status is not entirely clear due to Covid-19 but one quay will likely be ready for smaller vessels 1-3 MW in a very near future.

As regards the Port of Seyðisfjörður a 1,3 MW shore power installation for Smyrilline – in operation during 2021.

Somewhere between 6-10 smaller ports in Iceland are able to accept cruise ship calls and since turism and the cruise industry is important to Iceland there is an honest interest in enabling these ports to further service these vessels with electricity from shore thereby ensuring zero-emission port stays.