National cruise conference in Bergen
Trond Strømgren, Ocean Hyway Cluster
On Tuesday this week, 160 cruise-industry experts from all over Norway gathered in Bergen to discuss the need for a national cruise strategy and - among other things - gain more knowledge about future forms of energy for cruise ships. Ocean Hyway Cluster was represented by Trond Strømgren who gave a speech about hydrogen and other future energy sources.
Public focus
Secretary of State Atle Hamar opened the conference. He was clear that the Ministry of Climate and Environment works across the sectors and coordinates environmental strategy across ministries. It is a national goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from shipping. All actors must contribute to achieving national and international objectives, including the cruise industry. Shore power is a good measure to reduce local emissions, and ENOVA has provided a total of NOK 1.6 billion in support of this. Shore power plants have been established for cruise ships in Kristiansand, and facilities are planned to be completed in Bergen and Ålesund in 2020.
What are the cruise operators doing?
The three operators RCL, Carnival and DMC own 70% of the cruise ships in the world. The actions of these three operators are crucial.
Some years ago, RCL set a target of reducing emissions to air by 35% by 2020. They have now reduced emissions by 37% and are ahead of the target. In 2020, RCL will install the world's largest battery pack on one of their ships, and in 2021 they plan to install fuel cells on the ship "AIDAnova".
Carnival has chosen LNG as primary fuel for their new ships. The operator has 21 new vessels in order. LNG does not provide zero emissions, but provides up to 75% reduction in NOx emissions, 15% reduction in CO2 emissions (well to wake) and zero SOx emissions. 40% of the vessels in Carnival's fleet have connectors for shore power.
Different energy sources
Strømgren focused mostly on hydrogen in his presentation. Hydrogen represents a zero-emission solution, so long as hydrogen is produced from renewable or CO2-neutral sources. Cruise ships have large power requirements for both propulsion and hotel load, often more than 50-60 MW. This requires large fuel cell plants and it will take some years before the industry can deliver hydrogen powered energy systems with such high power. Alternatively, ammonia and methanol can provide low or zero-emissions operation.
Battery operation is good for short distances where charging can be done frequently e.g. fjord crossings with ferries. For cruise ships, the battery is not a solution. If you mount the world's largest ship battery pack on board a large cruise ship, the battery pack can only give the ship enough energy to last for five minutes at operation mode.
Hydrogen for the maritime sector
Several of the conference participants pointed the need for large-scale hydrogen production and an associated supply chain for hydrogen along the Norwegian coast. This is one of the projects that Ocean Hyway Cluster is working on. The report is scheduled for completion on December 1st 2019.
The conference was organized by the Vestlandsrådet. Contact Trond Strømgren for more information.