The Swedish government has approved Ports of Stockholm’s request to submit a joint application for a grant from the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).
This application, titled ‘Baltic Ports for Climate’, was made with eight other Baltic Sea ports to produce pilot studies focussed on the development of onshore power infrastructure.
These ports are Aarhus, Klaipeda, Ventspils, Helsinki, Riga, Tallinn, Gdynia and Hamburg.
The aim of these studies is to improve the electrical supply infrastructure by expanding the onshore power connections at Ports of Stockholm to ensure the development of more sustainable shipping with low emission of air pollutants.
“Together with the other Baltic Sea ports, we want to speed up and assure a more rapid development of onshore power connections for vessels at the quayside in the Baltic Sea region. This will result in greater ability to meet our own and EU environmental goals,” said Clara Lindblom, Chair of the Board of Ports of Stockholm.
This approval comes only weeks after Magdalena Bosson assumed her new role as CEO of the Ports of Stockholm on 1 January.
The initiative for the application was taken by the Baltic Ports Organization.
This is an industry sector organisation for ports around the Baltic Sea that the Ports of Stockholm has been a member of since the beginning of the 1990s.
READ: Ports of Stockholm strikes green hydrogen deal at container terminal
Ports of Stockholm will also be the project coordinator, which means bearing overall responsibility and communication with the EU.
A crucial aim of the project is to improve the exchange of information between Baltic Sea ports – in terms of onshore power connections – and to share knowledge of best practices in this area.
This effort to improve onshore communications comes just over a month after networks throughout the Baltic states were bolstered through a train service between Stockholm Norvik Port and the Eskilstuna Intermodal Terminal.
The application will be submitted to the EU in the middle of January.
If everything goes smoothly it is intended that the project will start in July 2023 and run until July 2025.
The development of onshore power connections is, among other things, one of the demands from the EU climate goals, and from the conversion to greener shipping policy known as Fit for 55.
Many of the regular scheduled ferry services are already connected to onshore power in Stockholm, and new onshore power facilities are being built at the quays at both Port of Kapellskär and at the city centre Stadsgården quays.
