Port access
Participants worked in different groups specialising in alternative fuels, port electrification, on-board emissions capture and storage, shipbuilding, operational exercise tools and ports
The Andalusian Maritime-Marine Cluster (CMMA) and Bilbao PortLab, the innovation hub of the Port of Bilbao which forms part of the Bilbao Port and River Foundation, have run an online workshop on technologies to decarbonise the maritime sector in the Atlantic Area, as part of the European SMARTDEC project. The aim of this project is to create and develop a maritime transport network to provide the tools, knowledge and structure required to rapidly meet the challenge of reducing pollutant emissions of the waterborne transportation of goods and people along the European coastline of the Atlantic Ocean.
The workshop was attended by around fifty people, including technology developers and users, investors and staff from administration and public organisations, and covered topics such as alternative fuels, electrification (including on-board energy production, management and storage systems), on-board emissions capture and storage, shipbuilding, operational exercise tools, and ports (including sustainable fuel supply and onshore power supply).
The European SMARTDEC project brings together key actors from different regions in Ireland, France, Portugal & Spain, organised as hubs or networks with a quadruple helix approach in which research & academia, policy makers, society and the industry (clusters, SMEs & start-ups) are working together to develop common strategies to decarbonise the maritime transport sector and to boost innovation capacities.
The project is set to run for 36 months (starting in January 2024 and ending in December 2026), with a budget of 2.06 million euros and funding from the Interreg Atlantic Area 2021-2027 programme (1.55 million euros from ERDF funds).
The partners involved are the Marine Institute-Irish Maritime Development Office (Ireland), Pôle MerBretagne Atlantique, Atlanpole and the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe (France), the University of Aveiro and the Fórum-da Economia do Mar (Portugal), the Bilbao Port and River Foundation (through Bilbao PortLab) and the Andalusian Maritime and Marine Cluster (CMMA).
The main goals of the consortium include developing common strategies to decarbonise the maritime transport sector, boosting innovation and deploying promising technoligical solutions currently available and validated to meet the needs of relevant end-users.
The workshop that has just taken place will be held simultaneously throughout the month of November by all consortium members from the four participating countries to gather information from the maritime decarbonisation industry across the Atlantic Arc.
