Scotland’s largest maritime decarbonization project is now live at the Port of Aberdeen, providing green shore power for vessels at eight berths in the port’s North Harbour.
The concept of shore power is simple: allowing vessels to plug directly into power from the port’s renewable energy tariff, instead of running on their own fossil fuel auxiliary engines while at berth, saving on fuel and cutting CO2 emissions, pollution, and noise.
For Port of Aberdeen, a Trust Port at the heart of the community with ambitions to be the UK’s first port to achieve net zero by 2040, the impact will be significant.
The new infrastructure, installed by PowerCon, could cut up to 60,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent over the next 20 years. This would remove the emissions equivalent of around 2,140 cars from the road every year.
The first vessel to be connected to the new system was OSM Thome’s NS Iona, one of five vessels retrofitted to accept shore power as part of the project.
“This is a major achievement for Port of Aberdeen and I am proud to have supported it through the UK SHORE programme – it shows what can be achieved when we put our full energy behind decarbonisation,” said Mike Kane, Maritime Minister.
The newly electrified berths are part of the…