Logistics in European ports should become more sustainable. The Institute of Energy Economics (EWI) at the University of Cologne is now researching which new fuels and energy sources can contribute to this together with 44 partners in a new research project. The MAGPIE project (“sMArt Green Ports as Integrated Efficient multimodal hubs”) is primarily concerned with fuels and energy sources that have not yet been tested in practice.
To this end, the Port of Rotterdam, DeltaPort (Lower Rhine, Germany), HAROPA PORT (Le Havre, Rouen, Paris in France) and Sines (Portugal) are collaborating with ten research institutes and more than 30 companies from the Netherlands, Germany, France, Portugal, Denmark and Sweden. Ten pilot projects are investigating sustainable and intelligent logistics in ports. The European Commission is providing funding of 25 million euros over five years from the Green Deal program “Horizon 2020” for this purpose.
Various sustainable fuels and energy carriers are currently being developed, such as green hydrogen, large electric batteries, ammonia and bio-LNG. MAGPIE addresses the use of new fuels and energy carriers throughout the value chain, i.e. in production, transport, storage, distribution (fuels) and charging (electricity). This could be, for example, an electric locomotive whose battery uses electricity from an overhead line while driving and is recharged in marshalling yards, or the storage of ammonia as marine fuel.
There are also projects in the area of digitalization and automation as part of the energy transition. One of the projects is also creating a master plan on how transport to, from and to ports can be CO2-free in 2050 and what needs to be done to achieve this in the 2030s and 2040s.
Disclaimer: This communication should not be regarded under any circumstances as a formal commitment by the CINEA to provide financial support, as this depends on the satisfactory and timely conclusion of grant agreement preparation and on the internal completion of the formal selection process.
