7 minute read
Australasia Focus
The need for renewable energy generation has never been clearer, with the UK adopting ‘‘ the role as a global leader in addressing climate change
The Humber is also among the leading areas in developing carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) technology that will be critical for reducing industrial emissions. An example of this is Zero Carbon Humber, a consortium of energy and industrial companies and academic institutions seeking to turn the Humber into the UK’s first net zero carbon region by 2040.
Ports have a crucial role to play in CCUS by providing a solution for shipping CO2, which is critical for regions of the UK that do not have direct access to geological storage. It also provides an opportunity for the UK to exploit the storage potential on the continental shelf for CO2 captured within the EU, where the plans for capture exceed the capacity of available storage.
The hydrogen economy
Accelerating the development of the hydrogen economy is a vital component of achieving net zero and indeed, hydrogen production is an important element of the UK’s clean energy transition. The UK Government’s hydrogen strategy seeks to achieve 10 GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030. In relation to this, the primary challenge is that currently there is no significant domestic production of such hydrogen in the UK.
Whilst the global green hydrogen market is expected to grow significantly in the coming decades, it is still at an early stage in the UK. As an example of a low carbon type of hydrogen, green hydrogen is generated using an electrolysis process, in which water is separated into hydrogen and oxygen by using electricity generated from renewable resources.
Ports provide critical infrastructure for the efficient handling of energy-related products. As hubs for transport and logistics, often adjacent to major industries and sources of renewable energy, they are ideally located to serve as generation, storage, and distribution sites for green hydrogen. Major projects already under way in the Humber ports illustrate the range of potential applications, from energy to transport fuel.
Immingham green energy
In August this year, ABP and Air Products announced their partnership project to bring the first large-scale green hydrogen production facility to the UK, the Immingham Green Energy Terminal. The facility, will contribute at least 150MW of hydrogen production capacity and will import green ammonia from production locations operated by Air Products and its partners around the world. The location will provide the maritime infrastructure and offers good proximity to markets and the required utilities. The Port of Immingham also provides a critical link in business supply chains throughout Britain, supporting 10,500 jobs nationally and contributing over GB£700 million to the economy every year.
ABP will invest in new infrastructure with a new jetty to service the import and export handling of liquid bulk products. In addition to handling green ammonia, the jetty is being designed so that it can accommodate other cargoes connected to the energy transition, including the import of liquified CO2 from carbon, capture and storage projects for sequestration in the North Sea – thereby playing a significant role in the UK’s energy transition.
Immingham sits within the UK’s largest industrial cluster and in close proximity to proposed offshore transport and storage networks for CO2. The scheme follows on from an existing Air Products’ plan to develop the UK’s largest blue hydrogen facility in Immingham, making the Humber a major location for low-carbon energy production, businesses, and jobs.
Benefi ts to the UK
The project will bring a wide range of benefits to Immingham and the UK, including eliminating up to 580,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year, the equivalent of taking 20,000 diesel HGVs off UK roads, as well as reducing nitrous oxide and particulate emissions. In addition, the project will bring up to US$4.6 billion in growth and financial benefits to the region and provide 1,400 direct jobs and approximately 1,600 indirect jobs for supply chains and local businesses.
This first-mover project stimulates demand and will support the development of a local and national green hydrogen market. It will be an important contributor to the Government’s plans to make the UK a “global leader in lowcarbon hydrogen.”
ABP is making significant investments to support a range of renewable energy generation projects. The development of the offshore wind sector is already a UK success story, and ABP has long been at the forefront of investment and delivery to support this. Opened in 2017, the offshore wind manufacturing facility at Green Port Hull has created skilled long-term jobs in the region and established a hub for future growth. Across the Humber Estuary in Grimsby, the port has evolved to become the world’s largest base for offshore wind operations and maintenance activity. This project was part of a GB£310 million joint venture between ABP and Siemens creating a renewable energy hub.
Ambitious sustainability targets are key to saving our planet and are a very positive step in the right direction. However, the journey to get there will require close collaboration between Government, businesses, and the Humber region, as the UK’s leading industry cluster. The energy transition provides both a generational opportunity to deliver clean and secure energy and the chance for levelling up the economy in the process.
8 17 of ABP’s
21 ports have renewable energy projects, such as this solar array at the Port of Barry
THE IMPORTANCE OF GHG MONITORING
GreenPort chats to Jon Lane, environment manager at RightShip on its expanded GHG Ratings tool specifi cally for ports and terminals
Why is it now ever more important to assess and monitor air emissions in ports?
At the most basic level, it’s more important than ever for ports to address CO2 emissions because it’s now critical for everyone to measure and manage them. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest report on climate change mitigation and increased extreme weather events, underlines the urgency of climate change issues, and ports must do their part, as we all must.
That said, there are specific reasons for ports to look at this now. Global attention is shifting to ‘hard to abate’ sectors like aviation and shipping, and the EU’s Fit for 55 directive outlines a range of policy proposals that will require accelerating the decarbonisation of the maritime sector.
Ports and terminals are locations where the number of vessels is concentrated and can easily be observed, measured and incentivised, with a view to reducing CO2 emissions. Ports also have a responsibility to local communities to protect air quality in their immediate vicinity, with the health impacts of air pollution a hot topic in the medical research community.
And of course, it’s important for ports to assess and monitor emissions now, because they can. There would be no use insisting ports do this if there were no effective tools to do so. We have reached a point where the technology and data are available to make this feasible for ports and terminals - which hasn’t always been the case.
QPlease give a brief outline of RightShip’s GHG Rating tool A RightShip’s GHG Rating provides a transparent method to assess the relative efficiency of vessels and compare a ship’s CO2 emissions relative to peer vessels of a similar size and type, using an easy-to-interpret A to G scale. Anyone who’s lived in the EU will recognise the scale as similar to that used for the energy efficiency of white consumer goods. We’ve operated these ratings for a decade now and have accumulated data on more than 50,000 vessels worldwide. The ratings tell users whether the vessel can be considered ‘green’ for its tonnage and class, where a ‘D’ is average for comparable vessels. Plus, this sits comfortably with RightShip’s vision of a zero-harm maritime industry - zero harm to the environment, to vessels, and to the crew sailing on them. We’ve expanded on the GHG Ratings tool to develop a specific solution for ports and terminals. The Maritime Emissions Portal (MEP) builds on the GHG Rating, adding sophisticated Automatic Identification System (AIS) movement data and geo-fencing technology. This means that when a vessel enters the area, ports can obtain insights into the vessel’s emissions inventory and air quality impacts through heatmaps and filters that include ship type, age, point of interest and emissions type. Impacts measured by the MEP can include core air greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO₂),
Photo: RightShip
Q A
8 Ports can obtain
