Port of Ham­burg kick-starts the Sus­tain­able En­ergy Hub Ini­tia­tive

The Port of Ham­burg is tak­ing ad­van­tage of the op­por­tu­ni­ties pre­sented by the en­ergy tran­si­tion and po­si­tion­ing it­self as a sus­tain­able en­ergy hub. Com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing in the field of sus­tain­able en­ergy sources will be pri­or­i­tized. In ad­di­tion to stor­age, pro­cess­ing and re­fin­ing, this also in­cludes sup­pli­ers, ser­vice providers and man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies of sys­tems and tech­ni­cal equip­ment for sus­tain­able en­ergy sources.

The Sus­tain­able En­ergy Hub is mainly lo­cated in the port areas in Neuhof, Hohe Schaar, Moor­burg and Har­burg with large-scale in­dus­trial and ter­mi­nal com­pa­nies with suf­fi­cient dis­tance from res­i­den­tial areas and good net­work in­fra­struc­ture (elec­tric­ity, pipelines).

To en­sure that this de­vel­op­ment pro­gresses as ef­fi­ciently as pos­si­ble, Ham­burg Port Au­thor­ity gave the start­ing sig­nal for the “Sus­tain­able En­ergy Hub Ham­burg (SEH)” ini­tia­tive on Oc­to­ber 9, 2023.

There are many com­pa­nies that are al­ready based in Ham­burg, such as Ma­banaft, Ham­burger Hafen und Lo­gis­tik AG (HHLA), EVOS Air Prod­ucts, Green Ports Ham­burg, Ham­burg En­ergiew­erke, Gas­netz Ham­burg, Shell, Hol­born, H&R Schindler, LOTHER GRUPPE, En­ergie Hub Moor­burg GmbH and Ham­burg Green Hy­dro­gen Hub.

On the one hand, the ini­tia­tive has set it­self the goal of bet­ter net­work­ing be­tween port com­pa­nies. On the other hand, it would like to raise pub­lic aware­ness of Port of Ham­burg as an en­ergy port, be­cause the tran­si­tion to sus­tain­able en­ergy will be the dom­i­nant topic in the com­ing years and decades. The ini­tia­tive aims to cre­ate an ecosys­tem that fa­cil­i­tates col­lab­o­ra­tion in the Port of Ham­burg.

For ex­am­ple, it should be pos­si­ble to co­or­di­nate in­fra­struc­ture needs among those in­volved. To achieve this, in­for­ma­tion should be ex­changed, win-win pro­jects iden­ti­fied, and net­work ex­pan­sion planned in a timely and needs-based man­ner. In this way, com­pa­nies can use syn­er­gies and pool their in­ter­ests.

Ex­pand­ing al­ter­na­tive fuel sup­ply for zero emis­sion ship­ping

Green Ship­ping is an es­sen­tial el­e­ment for be­com­ing a cli­mate neu­tral port. To­gether with pri­vate stake­hold­ers, HPA takes pro-ac­tively re­spon­si­bil­ity and sup­ports the es­tab­lish­ment of al­ter­na­tive fuel in­fra­struc­ture in the port of Ham­burg.Tanker Port areas are al­ready bunker-ready in the port of Ham­burg for any al­ter­na­tive fuel. Bio­fu­els are lo­cally avail­able and being bunkered reg­u­larly.

The ex­change of hy­dro­gen Mul­ti­ple En­ergy Con­tain­ment Sys­tems (MECS) is legally al­lowed all over the port. More­over, HPA pro-ac­tively takes care of es­tab­lish­ing ad­di­tional ap­proval re­quire­ments for bunker­ing of al­ter­na­tive fuels, as cur­rent law re­quires an ap­proval for bunker processes with al­ter­na­tive fuels with flash­point <55°C. Cruise ves­sels, feeder ves­sels as well as any smaller ships can al­ready bunker methanol land­side or wa­ter­side at Kro­n­prinzkai berth. From Q2 2025 on­wards, also con­tainer ves­sels will have in­fra­struc­ture avail­able for wa­ter­side methanol bunker­ing.

Fur­ther methanol bunker­ing berths will be es­tab­lished, as well as am­mo­nia bunker­ing op­tions until 2030, so that any ves­sel type is able to bunker any al­ter­na­tive fuel in Ham­burg.


HPA on In­sta­gram