Tuesday, April 29, 2025 - 09:08 by ce-press
In the first full year of onshore supply (OPS) being available in in Aalesund, 60 percent of the ships arriving on the 284 calls (189 in 2019) plugged in, with the hope for this year being 70 percent.
Ole Christian Fiskaa, port director Ports of Aalesund, says: “The cooperation with the cruiselines has been quite amazing so far. They actually do come as they say they will. I don’t think it would be an option to have this many ships if we had no OPS.”
Although there have been the usual and expected technical issues at times, these have been resolved by the port working together with the cruise company calling on the solution.
Two large ships can be connected at the same time on the pier with the present capacity being 32MW. Fiskaa explains: “We have three connection points at the pier and we also have a flexible cable management system. This year we will also be installing OPS for a smaller ship alongside also which may mean a slight increase in the capacity."
The city has a long history with the fishery industry, the cruise quays originally being used for the fishing boats which came into the centre of the city. It is with some pride and a great positive for the community that “the money we make on cruise activity we now spend on infrastructure for the fishery industry and cargo ships, which is possible because of the income that comes from the cruiseships calling”.
The journey to OPS began in 2018 when discussions took place with cruiselines and the local politicians of Aalesund. A 50/50 percent joint venture was established with Plug with about 20 percent of the total €12 million investment coming from Norwegian government subsidies.
The cruiselines paid a fixed price per kW hour throughout last year which hopefully will continue on into this year. Fiskaa says: “The more cruiselines connect, the higher the possibility is to lower the price.”
There is also a connection fee for each connection, which covers the work of connecting the ship. For new ships there is a commissioning process for the first call which comes at a fixed price.
Commenting on OPS, Fiskaa says: “This has been a very good strategic move for the port because we have received tremendously good feedback from the local community, politicians and the locals. They see that we really do work to improve the community and the sustainability of the business.” As far as community attitude to cruise goes, he explains that 60 to 70 percent of the population are positive, 15 percent “tend to have negative views and the rest are indifferent”.
The aim now is to try and “smooth out but not grow the main season and show the cruiselines the benefits of visiting Aalesund during the six months of the winter,” explains Synnove Johnsen, port press relations &marketing manager cruise, Ports of Aalesund.
