Four Baltic Sea Ports Join Forces on Onshore Power Supply

Four Baltic Sea ports, namely Estonia’s port of Tallinn, Swedish ports of Stockholm and Finland’s ports of Helsinki and Turku, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aiming for a common approach for a new onshore power supply for vessels on September 9.

The aim of the cooperation is to actively contribute to reducing negative effects on the environment, according to the parties.

As passenger ferry quays in Helsinki, Stockholm, Tallinn and Turku are located close to the city centres, the four ports agreed that one option for reducing or even eliminating all the negative effects is to connect ferries to the onshore electricity grid while berthed.

With the MoU, the parties plan to set a common approach for the new onshore power supply in three aspects – the ports will provide newly built connections with a voltage of 11 kV and a frequency of 50 Hz, they will jointly encourage other ports and shipping companies to follow the initiative and recommendations concerning onshore power supply standards, and they will continue to work to minimize the negative effects on the environment of port operations and shipping in the Baltic Sea region.

The signing of MoU took place in Helsinki during the Baltic Ports Organisation’s (BPO) Conference session IV, which was titled “Baltic Sea as a model region for clean ports and shipping”.

The ports of Tallinn, Helsinki, Stockholm and Turku previously signed agreements on development, cooperation and continuation of efforts for a better environment during periods 2009-2014 and one specific initiative the ports agreed to work on together was electricity connections for vessels.