The Maritime Energy Transition project (MAREN) has been extended until 2024.
The project was initially funded for one year under the Nordic Innovation Mobility Mission: Sea Meets Land in 2020. It aims at speeding up the transition from conventional to green energy sources in maritime sector. Improved availability of green fuels for the maritime sector will also benefit the availability of clean energy in port operations and land transportation.
Confirmed need for coordinated action
In the initial project period, the project consortium has consolidated Nordic cluster-to-cluster cooperation and identified complementary Nordic strongholds and interests, as well as laying the foundation for cross-border cooperation in additional projects like the INTERPORT project.
The consortium has confirmed that the most important component in reducing carbon emissions in maritime mobility is zero-emission fuels – and that this can create new value chains with high value creation potential.
While there is plenty of interest in the topic across the maritime mobility sector, there is still a high degree of uncertainty regarding types of fuel, technologies, market segments and development timelines. The maritime energy transition is highly complex and require further knowledge, as well as shared knowledge across borders and industries, to achieve a desired impact.
The level of uncertainty and risk, the complexity of the energy transition, and the dependence of new value chain constructions prevent independent action from individual businesses. To realize the potential in the maritime energy transition on a Nordic level, there is a strong need for coordinated action across borders and industries in the region.
Three tools for a maritime energy transition
Going forward, the project will develop three concrete deliverables for the maritime industry that can be used to accelerate the green maritime transition.
- Nordic maritime energy program: the purpose of the program is to foster and spread knowledge on new insights and innovations in the field of sustainable maritime energy.
- Nordic strategy on maritime energy transition: will be developed together with leading stakeholders. The strategy will outline how joint Nordic knowledge strongholds will be created and in turn converted to concrete innovation projects and collaborations in the region in the coming years.
- Nordic Digital platform for cross-industrial open innovation and collaboration: The platform will offer an infrastructure for creating new partnerships and work as a "project generator" throughout the Nordic Region.
The purpose of these actions is to coordinate Nordic innovation initiatives in the field of maritime energy, to showcase the Nordic position at a European level in relevant networks and to create a structure for project generation and collaboration that will go beyond the project period. In addition, an EU application will be formulated based on the findings of the strategy.
Partners
Renewable Energy Cluster
Vaasa Region Development Company
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden
Erhvervshus Fyn
INE
SINTEF
Danish Maritime
Background
The MAREN project was initially co-funded by Nordic Innovation through the Nordic Innovation Mobility Mission: Sea Meets Land.
The NOK 8 million mission, formulated as decarbonizing Nordic ports, transport of people and goods – on and between sea and land – ran in 2020 and 2021 and was an initiative to bring shipping in line with the Paris climate agreement. In March 2020, five projects were awarded co-funding and in November 2021 the NOW Ports project was announced winners of the mission.
However, since several of the co-funded projects has shown promising results and contributed to create strong Nordic innovation collaborations, Nordic Innovation has decided to extend the co-funding for some of them as part of our continued work with mobility and connectivity in the Nordic region.
