Sea ports need high-energy supplies and are a source of air pollution, two environmental problems that can be minimized by using renewable energy. Considering the convergence of resources, infrastructures and facilities in ports, marine renewable energy arises as a promising alternative.
PORTOS aims to assess, develop and promote the integrated use of renewable energy resources in Atlantic Area ports and increase their energy efficiency, establishing a roadmap to a more competitive and sustainable sector.
Overall Objective
Sea ports need high-energy supplies and are a source of air pollution, two environmental problems that can be minimized by using renewable energy. Considering the convergence of resources, infrastructures and facilities in ports, marine renewable energy arises as a promising alternative.
PORTOS aims to assess, develop and promote the integrated use of renewable energy resources in Atlantic Area ports and increase their energy efficiency, establishing a roadmap to a more competitive and
sustainable sector.
Fields of intervention
Fostering renewable energies and energy efficiency.
Investment in infrastructure, capacities and equipment in large companies directly linked to research and innovation activities.
Research and innovation activities in public research centres and centres of competence including networking.
Research and innovation infrastructure, processes, technology transfer and cooperation in enterprises focusing on the low carbon economy and on resilience to climate change.
Development and promotion of enterprises specialised in providing services contributing to the low carbon economy and to resilience to climate change (including support to such services).
Renewable energies: wind, solar, biomass. hydroelectric, geothermal and marine energy. And renewable energy integration (including storage, power to gas and renewable hydrogen infrastructure).
More about PORTOS
What is our common challenge?
PORTOS deals with the common challenge of the Atlantic Area related to the pressure that industry, economy and society are exerting on the environment while having an abundance of natural resources. In this context, it is focused on the problem faced by ports, which are a source of air pollution and have a high-energy demand while the renewable energy resources available on-site (namely, wave, tidal, solar and offshore wind energy) remain unexploited.
The Atlantic Area has an advantageous situation in respect to other EU regions thanks to its high marine renewable energy resources. In fact, the Atlantic Area is the second transnational area for wind power in EU and many of its territories provide opportunities for wave, tidal and river in-stream power, among others. Nonetheless, most of the Atlantic Area regions are still far away from having significant renewable energy capacities installed, while ports (major hubs of economic activity) present inadequate energy efficiency patterns and lack of the technical means and facilities to support the installation, operation and maintenance of marine renewable energy plants.
In accordance with the Atlantic Area programme, the RIS3 Strategies and the EU strategies on Energy and Transport, PORTOS capitalizes the technical and political advances obtained during the last years to develop favourable conditions for the rise of the marine renewable energy sector, shifting towards a low carbon economy. Moreover, it contributes to develop specific technical and planning solutions and to establish governance frameworks for energy efficiency and renewable energy implementation in the Atlantic Area ports.
What is our transnational approach?
The implementation of renewable energy/marine renewable energy in ports is a challenge that should be achieved with a transnational approach, so as to consider the specificities of the Atlantic Area ports and to obtain more advanced and efficient solutions of general applicability and high scalability potential, resulting from the combined efforts of several partners with different, yet complementary, expertise on resources characterization (waves, tidal, wind, etc.), harvesting technologies and their implementation.
In addition, the commercial exploitation of marine renewable energy is still a challenging task that requires an enormous technical and financial effort. Wave and tidal stream energy conversion concepts are still under development or optimization and none of them has proved its technical hegemony yet.
Similarly, offshore wind technology is still immature to face the rough coastal conditions of the great majority of Atlantic Area regions. Collaboration between regions and know-how sharing are essential to overcome those difficulties.
Finally, as each port presents unique characteristics (e.g. different industrial activities, infrastructures, available resources), the possible renewable energy/marine renewable energy solutions differ. Thus, to provide useful renewable energy/marine renewable energy solutions to the general Atlantic Area port system, this variability needs to be captured by analyzing different and representative case studies throughout the Atlantic Area, which is one of the objectives of PORTOS. The engagement of key-stakeholders ensures that tangible outcomes are pursued for the real challenges of the sector.
What are out main outputs and results?
The outcomes of PORTOS are:
1. Detailed energy efficiency audit of three case-study ports;
2. marine renewable energy exploitation plans and pilot actions for each case-study, including the most adequate marine renewable energy mix and conversion technologies;
3. Roadmap and guidelines to reach energy self-sufficiency in the Atlantic Area port system;
4. Demonstrators of three hybrid technologies to enable exploitation of renewable energy/marine renewable energy resources in case-study ports;
5. Decision Support System for implementing renewable energy/marine renewable energy technologies in Atlantic Area ports;
6. Proofs of concept of cutting edge technologies;
7. Actions (Open days/Open Labs) to involve society in the development of marine renewable energies;
8. Training and know-how transference to key stakeholders, end users and society.
Organisations operating or with capabilities to operate in the renewable energy/marine renewable energy sector, such as energy suppliers, the industrial sector and the energy agencies, will benefit from the results of PORTOS. In particular, the port and transport sectors will have a detailed knowledge of the current scenario to improve and/or develop their environmental policies.
Based on the results obtained, the case-study ports will launch observatories to apply the developed marine renewable energy exploitation plans. The scientific community will also have a direct benefit, as the technical solutions obtained in the project will be shared, allowing its discussion and further development. Last, but not least, the society will benefit from the improvements in the sustainable energy
ecosystem obtained.
Who will use the main outputs?
• National public organisation
• Regional public organisation
• Local public organisation
• Public Enterprise
• Cross-border organisation
• Transnational organisation
• University or research and innovation centre
• Education and training centre
• Civil society association
• Business networks and associations
• Private enterprises
PORTOS PROJECT INNOVATION
What’s new?
The main innovation of PORTOS is the holistic integration of marine renewable energy in ports and its combination with traditional renewable energy, to obtain a balanced and diversified energy mix based on the characteristics of each port.
Three representative ports with different energy consumption patterns and renewable energy potential are used as case studies and cutting-edge harnessing technologies are developed and optimized for the sitespecific conditions. PORTOS takes advantage of the potential synergies between marine renewable energy and ports—energy resources, infrastructures and facilities converge in a common space—to address problems of both sectors simultaneously.
The development of port-integrated conversion technologies helps to overcome some limitations in Marine Renewable Energies, such as high operation and maintenance costs and environmental impacts. Although the project focuses on three pilot ports to define their specific Renewable Energies implementation/exploitation plans, an innovative aspect of PORTOS is the development of general and holistic solutions that serve as a guidance to implement Marine Renewable Energies and to achieve energy self-sufficiency in ports. The most advanced research techniques—including met-ocean works, experimental tests in wave tanks and computational methods—are used to obtain ad-hoc Marine Renewable Energies technologies and decision support tools. Due to the intermittent nature of Marine Renewable Energies, the combination of different resources and the development of energy storage systems is necessary to maximize effective power production, ensuring energy self-sufficiency in ports.
