The Swedish government has approved Ports of Stockholm’s request to submit a joint application, together with eight other Baltic Sea ports, for a grant from the EU Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). This EU grant application, titled ‘Baltic Ports for Climate,’ was made for pilot studies to develop the onshore power infrastructure at the Ports of Stockholm, enabling more sustainable shipping with low air pollutant emissions.
The aim is to improve the electrical supply infrastructure by expanding the onshore power connections at the Ports of Stockholm to ensure the development of more sustainable shipping with low emissions of air pollutants.
“Together with the other Baltic Sea ports, we want to speed up and assure more rapid development of onshore power connections for vessels at the quayside in the Baltic Sea region. This will result in a greater ability to meet our own and EU environmental goals,” says Clara Lindblom, Chair of the Board of Ports of Stockholm.
The application is being submitted together with the ports in Aarhus, Klaipeda, Ventspils, Helsinki, Riga, Tallinn, Gdynia, and Hamburg. The initiative for the application was taken by the Baltic Ports Organisation, an industry sector organization for ports around the Baltic Sea that Ports of Stockholm has been a member of since the beginning of the 1990s.
Things will start with different pilot studies concerning the expansion of onshore power connections for cruise ships at the Värtahamnen/Frihamnen ports and for ferry connections at the city center Stadsgården quays.
Ports of Stockholm will also be the project coordinator, which means bearing overall responsibility and communication with the EU. The important aim of the project is also 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.
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 of the EU climate goals and conversion to a greener shipping policy known as Fit for 55.
