The Port of Kiel inaugurated its new onshore power plant at Ostuferhafen on Saturday during a call by MSC Cruises' flagship, the MSC Euribia, while Kiel's Managing Director, Dirk Claus, expressed his hope that 100 cruise ship calls will benefit from the onshore power by 2024.
The opening marked a second milestone for the port, which for the first time surpassed the mark of one million cruise passengers served in a single season just a few days earlier.
Claus stated that the port expects to supply shore power to around 100 cruise ship calls next year, 60 of them at the Ostseekai terminal and 40 via the newly opened Ostuferhafen shore power station, and affirmed that Kiel aims to supply green shore power to all ships using this technology by 2030 at the latest.
From 2024, the Port of Kiel will be able to supply shore power to six ships at a time, using green energy purchased in Scandinavia.
The plant, installed at a cost of 17 million euros, was declared operational during a ceremony held on Saturday attended by the Premier of the Federal State of Schleswig-Holstein, Daniel Günther, the Mayor of Kiel, Ulf Kämpfer, representatives of the port management, the captain of the MSC Euribia, Captain Christopher Pugh, senior representatives of the cruise company and the technical partner Siemens, which supplied the new system and has been responsible for Kiel's previous onshore power installations.
The introduction of the plant means that shore power facilities are now available at all cruise ship berths in Kiel. The plant consists of two separate shore power systems capable of supplying up to three ships simultaneously.
The first of the two systems, connected to four berths at Ostuferhafen, is designed to supply power to one ferry and one cruise ship at a time. It has a capacity of 16 MVA and can supply passenger vessels at a frequency of 50 or 60 Hz and a voltage of 6.6 kV or 11 kV.
The second shore power system, with a network frequency of 50 Hz, is designed exclusively for RoRo vessels and connected to two berths with a voltage of 6.6 kV or 11 kV up to a maximum power of 5 MVA.
Integration tests with the MSC Euribia
On September 23, integration tests continued with MSC Euribia, in preparation for the ship to receive regular electrical power on land.
MSC Cruises uses Ostuferhafen as a port of call for the MSC Euribia and plans to continue doing so in the coming years. The cruise line signed an agreement in June for its ships to connect to Kiel's local power grid when calling at the port 20 times during the summer of 2024. The Euribia represents a significant portion of the cruise ship calls planned for Kiel that will utilize shore power.
During Saturday's ceremony, Christian Hein, Managing Director of MSC Cruises Germany, described the use of land-based energy as an important element of the operator's environmental efforts: "Together with the use of LNG as fuel, improved energy efficiency, the use of innovative wastewater treatment and waste recycling, we are taking an important step to further reduce our impact on the environment," he said.
Since 2017, all new MSC Cruises ships have been equipped as standard with shore power and, together with the adaptations made to other ships, 67% of MSC Cruises' total capacity is equipped with this technology.
Linden Coppell, Vice President of Sustainability and ESG at MSC Cruises, said: “The inauguration of onshore electricity at the Ostuferhafen terminal in Kiel is another step forward in our decarbonization journey. We expect around 15 new ports to be added to the list of ports with onshore power facilities that MSC Cruises can use to access electricity grids in Europe between 2024 and 2026. This further demonstrates our commitment and continued progress towards decarbonization, as well as reducing emissions from our ships while docked in ports.
MSC Euribia will also use Hamburg's onshore power facility during its 2023/24 winter season in Northern Europe.
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