Wednesday, September 27, 2023 - 09:36 by ce-press
Cruise Gate Hamburg had a strong presence at Seatrade Europe, with Tine Oelmann-Scheel and Simone Tommaso Maraschi taking part in three panels “Discussions on Infrastructure for successful shore excursions“ and “The future of environmental impact assessment in port operations“ as well as “Shore power 101: empowering ports for a sustainable future“, respectively.
In his first session, Maraschi and Jon Olav Stedje (Port of Flam and EPI Ambassador) described the ESI (Environmental Ship Index) and EPI (Environmental Port Index) systems, their functionality and the positive impact of using them. Nikos Mertzanidis, director of European Government Affairs CLIA moderated.
When it comes to sustainability, the availability of data is crucial. But it is also one of the biggest challenges for ports. Ports play an important role in the decarbonisation process, so they need to be proactive and not wait for regulation.
Ports and ship owners need data to understand emissions trends in order to optimise their fleets and operations. Furthermore, concrete and tangible data is essential to communicate with the community, stakeholders and local politicians.
Stedje comments: “The EPI is a necessary and crucial tool to collect essential data in a transparent way. It is a tool designed and used by port authorities and maritime administrations and has become the standard tool used by many ports around the world to reward and incentivise ship owners/operators for environmentally friendly behaviour that exceeds IMO emission standards. It provides an incentive for positive change and recognises those who excel in sustainability practices.”
Since its introduction in 2011, the Hamburg Port Authority has applied the ESI as a rebate component of the port fee and it is now active in the development of a further module the ESI @ Berth. A pilot phase has started this summer and will continue during 2024. During this phase shipowners will be able to share their dynamic data after each call. Starting from 1 January 2025, the ESI @ Berth will go live.
In the second session, Morten Kusk from the Port of Aarhus joined Maraschi and Minas Papadakis from the Port of Heraklion and Levan Chikviladze from ShoreLink in discussing the importance of investing in shore power, sharing in success stories and addressing the challenges faced by pioneers in implementing shore power across Europe.
The session mainly dealt with the commercial side of the issue, ie how to sell shore power.
The composition of the panel was interesting in that it covered both the port side and the service provider side (with Hamburg as a pioneer in shore power, the port of Heraklion aiming to become the first Greek port to apply fully integrated electrification services to any type of vessel, and Aarhus as the first port in Denmark where ships can take shore power as of this year). Shore Link has provided a good insight from the service provider side.
