Port of Tallinn to establish Baltic Sea green infrastructure hub

The Port of Tallinn has unveiled an “ambitious” plan to design the hub of the Baltic Sea green infrastructure as part of an effort to reach carbon neutrality in Estonia.

Under the plan, the port will focus more and more on creating a green energy ecosystem in the industrial parks of Muuga Harbour and Paldiski South Harbour. Together with its partners, it will also work on converting multiple ferries to hydrogen fuel.

Furthermore, the port authority is considering converting its inter-island ferries to more environmentally friendly fuels and hydrogen is a potentially suitable alternative for this purpose.

“The plan of building a hydrogen terminal could be attractive for the industries that do not produce energy themselves, but would like to take part in the green revolution and rebuild their production,” Margus Vihman, member of the management board and chief commercial officer of Port of Tallinn, said.

According to the Port of Tallinn, there will be a need for bunkering hydrogen or other green fuels in the east-west corridor of the Baltic Sea in the future, which is suitable for both Muuga and Paldiski South Harbour.

The hydrogen storage facility of 25,000 cbm is planned in cooperation with Alexela. The latter would enable the export and import of hydrogen in the Baltic Sea region, thus allowing the transition of the Estonian economy to clean energy sources.

There is still no hydrogen terminal in the area of Gulf of Finland today.

In cooperation with the Dutch Embassy and the company Flux, a study has been conducted in Port of Tallinn on the possibilities and potentiality of using green hydrogen in ports, which revealed that Estonia could be a suitable location as a hub for hydrogen infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.

The port has also entered into an agreement with the Port of Hamburg with common intentions to work together on the development of the hydrogen infrastructure value chain.

What is more, the port authority is also researching various shore power solutions for cruise ships – including hydrogen electricity generation.

In September last year, the port installed its first shore power facility in Tallinn Old City Harbour.

“The European Green Deal, ambitious climate goals and hydrogen strategy create a very good opportunity to build climate-friendly green infrastructure in Estonia with the support of the European Union,” Vihman added.

“This would contribute to full transformation of the transport sector on the one hand and give a further boost to the renewable energy sector on the other hand, which will provide an incentive to produce green hydrogen, especially in the situations where there is a lot of cheap electricity at the market.”