CENIT joins an international consortium of 46 partners led by the Port of Antwerp to form a leading voice on the Greening of European Ports.
The PIONEERS consortium has been awarded a 25 million euro grant from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme. CENIT will be working alongside other leading international think-tanks, ports, terminal- and transport operators, technology developers and public entities to form a leading voice on the greening of European Ports, showcasing solutions to reduce Green House Gas emissions in ports whilst safeguarding competitiveness.
The research project is led by CENIT´s Javier Garrido, who explains “PIONEERS really does describe the project, it´s an ambitious and groundbreaking mission! We are completely rethinking all aspects of port operations, that includes terminal operations, concession agreements, mobility, connectivity, fuels, models for cooperation and production, storage and use of energy.”
In terms of practicalities, PIONEERS brings together the ports of Antwerp, Barcelona, Constanta and Venlo – all with differing characteristics – in order to address the challenge for European ports of reducing GHG emissions and meeting Green Deal goals while remaining competitive and committed towards Blue Growth. The ports will implement a total of 19 green port innovation demonstrations across four main pillars:
- clean energy production and supply
- sustainable port design
- modal shift and flows optimization
- and digital transformation.
Garrido continues “We´re really excited to be part of the PIONEERS team and to have an opportunity to shape the Port of the future. We will be working with themes including renewable energy generation and deployment of electric, hydrogen and methanol vehicles; building and heating networks retrofit for energy efficiency and implementation of circular economy approaches in infrastructure works. The 19 demonstrator projects will also focus on the deployment of digital platforms to promote modal shift of passengers and freight and ensure optimised vehicle, vessel and container movements.”
The Port of Antwerp is already functioning as a lighthouse port, hosting the majority of demonstrators and showcasing a real life Green Port. The ports of Barcelona, Constanta and Venlo, as fellow ports, will play an active role in maximising the transferability of the solutions and are engaged to implement the best practices from the project. This aspect of the project is crucial to create partnerships and active dialogue with a wide stakeholder network – and as a result ease the roll out and ensure maximum transferability of innovations.
