3 April 2024 (Lloyd's List) - MAJOR container handling equipment at the new Croatian terminal of Rijeka Gateway will be fully electrified, APM Terminals has confirmed, as it looks to meet its goal to be net zero by 2040.
Investment in new equipment at the terminal will reach €100m ($108m) and include ship-to-shore cranes, gantry cranes and vehicles totalling 60 items.
The first batch of the electrified equipment will arrive in July 2024, with operations at the terminal set to begin in 2025. Capacity will initially be limited to 650,000 teu, but an increase to 1.05m teu is planned in later phases.
The joint venture between APMT and ENNA and the accompanying railway modernisation is Croatia’s largest national project.
Rijeka Gateway project director Koen Benders said that 95% of equipment being electrified would make the port “almost fully decarbonised”.
But there is uncertainty on the source of that electricity. APM Terminals said it was too early in the construction process to confirm where the electricity for the new terminal will originate from, but that 40% of its energy demand at the end of 2023 came from renewable resources.
“We source 100% renewable electricity across most of our terminals and work to have good solutions in place when Rijeka Gateway goes live in 2025,” an APMT spokesperson told Lloyd’s List.
APMT head of decarbonisation Sahar Rashidbeigi previously told Lloyd’s List that it still made more sense to use electricity than diesel to power port equipment, even if the source of energy for the grid was not renewable.
“Even when you have a dirty grid fuelled by coal or gas, the answer to ‘should you electrify’ is yes,” she argued.
“Just by going electric, you save so much energy because electric machines are in general way more efficient that diesel.”
APMT and DP World launched the Zero Emissions Port Alliance at COP28 last year. A White Paper from the pair highlighted huge potential for battery-electric container handling equipment “if all stakeholders take the right action”.
Rashidbeigi said the white paper and formation of the alliance “was quite a breakthrough”.
“We launched Zepa to encourage the scaling up of production capacity, bring down the cost of batteries and charging solutions, and create better implementation conditions for zero-emission fleets,” she said.
“Our experience and feedback since the launch shows us that the industry wants to engage to solve the challenge.”
However, she has also warned that the switch to electric equipment will create a significant increase in power demand and could lead to bottlenecks if grid infrastructure is not upgraded.
