Wadden Sea Fund invests in fossil-free Wadden Sea fleet – Eekels | TBI participates on board

Thanks to a contribution of €8 million from the Wadden Sea Fund, an extensive investment programme to make shipping in the Wadden Sea greener can now get underway. The Green Shipping project aims to make the Wadden Sea fleet largely sustainable within the space of ten years. The aim is to reduce CO2 emissions by 60% by 2030. In addition, all vessels in the commercial shipping sector will have to be running on hydrogen by that date. The total investment in Green Shipping over the next four years will be €26 million. The project is part of the Wadden Region Investment Framework established by the three Wadden Sea provinces. This is a multi-year programme designed to facilitate major investment in the Wadden Sea region.

Green Shipping is made up of a total of ten subsidiary projects, the first five of which will carried out up to 2024. The first project is called "Hydrogen for Shore Power". In this project, a mobile hydrogen-based fuel cell generator will be designed and tested for the supply of shore power in Groningen Seaports, Port of Den Helder andPort of Harlingen. The technology will be developed and deployed by Eekels Technology B.V., Nedstack Fuel Cell Technology and Bredenoord, with support from FME and Recoy. This project will prevent emissions of CO2 and nitrogen, as well as noise nuisance, by allowing the ship's engines to be switched off as soon as a ship is moored because electricity required for guest facilities, for example, can then be supplied by a mobile fuel cell generator.