Congress Review

MANAGING ENERGY TRANSITION AMID ECONOMIC TURBULENCE

A turbulent economic and political climate has made green investments more challenging but also more urgent, writes Gavin Lipsith

While the Covid pandemic, the Ukraine invasion and global infl ation have put pressure on operations and investment plans, the need to decarbonise both port activities and maritime trade is becoming increasingly urgent.

Confronting these challenges through greater collaboration was the key theme at GreenPort Congress and Cruise 2022, held in Bruges in October 2022.

Isabelle Ryckbost, secretary general, European Sea Port Organisation (ESPO), chanelled Winston Churchill and urged delegates to “never waste a good crisis”. The challenges over the past three years have highlighted the strategic and critical role of ports, she said, and operators should look to capitalise on this newfound appreciation as they accelerate their investments in the energy transition – and the investments they seek from other stakeholders.

Congress chairman Christopher Wooldridge, science coordinator, EcoPorts EcoSLC and Visiting Research Fellow, Cardiff University, summed up the urgency by pointing to the UN definition of sustainability: Meeting present needs without compromising future generations. “We need ideas and the clock is ticking,” he said. “The future generations are stacking up.”

Methanol momentum

The ambitions of container line and terminal operator A.P. Moller-Maersk illustrate the urgency of the transition and the need for rapid investment. Despite rising energy and material prices (and hence higher prices for green fuel production and shipbuilding), the company has added more methanol-fuelled containerships to its newbuilding programme in recent months, with 19 due to be in service by 2024.

Captain Sameer Bhatnagar, senior decarbonisation integration manager, Decarb Business Development & Innovation, A.P. Moller-Maersk, urged port operators to “lean out” in their efforts to deliver the required methanol supply infrastructure, rather than waiting for regulators to take a lead.

“Supply infrastructure has to radically change,” he noted. “This is proving a challenge and needs commitment across the supply chain, including energy suppliers and ports.”

Across the two days of the congress, ports discussed their various responses. The need to prepare for the energy transition were one of the prime reasons for the merger that formed the Port of Antwerp-Bruges, host of the congress. Rik Goetinck, general director policy & strategy, detailed the combined organisation’s green growth strategy, epitomised by plans to develop the region as a ‘Hydrogen Valley’, with huge hydrogen import and eventually production capacities.

The need for closer alignment between ports, terminal operators and ship operators was also evident throughout the event. Heidi Neilson, head of planning and environment, Port of Oslo, used the example of Oslofjord in Norway, where seven ports already offer the shore power capabilities to enable a local green corridor. The difficulty has been in persuading ship operators that shore power is a costeffective decarbonisation option and that they will not need multiple interfaces for different systems in different ports.

Regulatory riddles

The regulatory framework will be a critical enabler both for stimulating alternative fuels infrastructure investment and for encouraging uptake of shore power facilities already available. Throughout congress, both European and IMO regulations were scrutinised. In particular, FuelEU Maritime and the EU Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Regulation were discussed from the perspective of both ship and port operators.

The concern among ports and terminals is that the shore power requirements introduced by European regulation will require heavy investment without the guaranteed usage to pay for the new infrastructure. Edvard Molitor, head of sustainability, Port of Gothenburg, summed up that perspective. “Regulation is the best way to drive high usage of onshore power supply, and high usage is the only way to get a return,” he said.

But aiming to recover port investment entirely from service charges is also unsustainable, said Sebastian Ebbing, technical advisor, Climate, Marine fuels, Innovation, Funding of the German shipowner association VDR. “Shipping companies will use onshore power supply as needed to comply with FuelEU Maritime,” he said. “But they cannot bear the costs for it alone.”

While the regulations are in place, the crucial detail about who pays for the investment needed is still open for discussion. In reality, collaboration between stakeholders and a willingness to share in the risk of investment is the most likely path to success – a useful reminder that regulation is not the answer to all port challenges.

But at least regulation should not pose more difficulties than it solves. The IMO’s Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) came

8 Valter Selén,

ESPO, said that there is a “solid mandate to push for stronger policy for the greening of shipping”

under the spotlight for its potential negative consequences. Speaking during a cruise breakaway session Linden Coppell, MSC Cruises vice president sustainability & ESG, noted that the current formulation of the CII, which came into effect on 1 January 2023, could mean that cruise liners opt to spend less time at ports – depriving destinations of cruise-related revenues while requiring vessels to burn more fuel at sea.

“It is much easier to organise our itineraries around full port days,” she said, noting that ports also benefit from the services provided to liners and passengers during longer port visits. “But more sea days may give us a better CII score.”

A port time correction factor proposal is already being developed by a cross-sector group and the CII is due to be reviewed in 2026 after a three-year experience building phase.

Driving dialogue

Mounting climate and environmental challenges – and solving the questions left unanswered by regulation – provide possibly the strongest case for greater dialogue between ports. As an example, Jackie Spiteri, managing director of environmental consultant Sustainable ESG, gave a brief risk assessment of the environmental issues facing Oceania.

The issues relating to climate change are region-wide, including 14 Small Island Developing States – among them Fiji, Guam, American Samoa and Papa New Guinea and Tonga - that are particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming. Spiteri noted that those countries rely on intraregional trade both for crucial imports and for target markets as they seek to grow their economies through exports.

The transitional risk for ports is also high as authorities select the technology and infrastructure that will help them protect and adapt their businesses in the face of climate change. Nick Livesy, chief financial officer of Port of Newcastle – host of the inaugural GreenPort Congress Oceania, to be held in February 2023 – gave an overview of the challenges the Australian port faces.

Newcastle’s throughput was dominated by steel until the local steelworks was closed in 1999. The community and port shifted focus to coal production and transport, which was noted will not be likely to last through the global energy transition. Now the port is aiming to transition away from coal and invest in new activities including hydrogen production.

Other port stakeholders in the region and beyond are being invited to attend GreenPort Oceania to learn more about Port of Newcastle’s transition strategy and to help accelerate the greening of ports across the region. 8 GreenPort Congress Oceania will be held on 15 to 17

February 2023 in Newcastle, Australia.

8 The event’s

sustainability workshop was specifi cally designed to encourage and facilitate input from the wealth of knowhow from delegates

Insight into key issues

The very essence of GreenPort is the exchange of knowledge and experience between practicing professionals. The event’s sustainability workshop was specifi cally designed to encourage and facilitate the exchange of know-how brought to the event by delegates.

Commencing with strategic sustainability comments from Dr Antonis Michail, WPSP technical coordinator, IAPH, Heidi Neilson, head of planning & environment, Port of Oslo and Herman Journée, chairman, EcoSLC EcoPorts, the workshop included participants from Asia, Europe, the UK, Australia and North America.

Hosted by Jason Sprott, Sprott Planning & Environment Australia and Dr Chris Wooldridge from Cardiff University, the workshop focused on identifying the issues considered the ‘most important’ when developing sustainability strategies.

Mr Sprott provided technical presentation on the benefits of using ‘Materiality Assessment’ when developing sustainability strategies – an industry accepted technique

Photo: MML

used by his company in its work with ports and terminals across Australia and New Zealand.

The workshop participants were firstly asked to list what they thought were the most important issues to consider when developing sustainability strategies in the four categories of ‘People’, ‘Environment’, ‘Prosperity’ and ‘Partnerships’.

Participants then used a ‘pre-populated’ template across the four sustainability categories and were asked to rank each issue in a scale of importance from 1 (low) to 10 (high) working in ’internal and external stakeholder groups’ including board members, executive staff, community, shipping lines and port tenants.

”When undertaking a materiality assessment, it is critical that both internal and external viewpoints are considered – this leads to a more informed process for strategy development,” Mr Sprott said. ”It was so pleasing to see the interaction and lively debate between workshop participants – each with their own valid viewpoint which is the essence of materiality assessments,” said Dr Wooldridge.

Results from the workshop found that while all issues scored at least 5, the top issues included safety, climate change, energy/fuel transition and air quality - similar to Mr Sprott’s surveys undertake across Oceania.

The workshop also drew a comparison between internal and external stakeholder results. ”We hope to continue to trend of microworkshops at the next round of GreenPort conferences – they encourage collaboration on ideas, policy and challenges facing the industry,” Dr Wooldridge added.

8 The workshop included participants from Asia,

Europe, the UK, Australia and North America