Fourth North Sea Hydrogen Ports and Maritime Conference

About the Seminar

“Developing the North Sea’s Role as a Strategic Hydrogen

                                    Corridor”

                        Thursday 27 February 2025

 Scotland House Conference Centre, 8^th. Floor, Rond-Point Schuman 6, Brussels

This One Day Conference is to be held in Brussels in February. It will examine the development of the North Sea’s role as a Hydrogen Corridor and the key role that the North Sea ports and maritime sector will play in its development.  The Conference will hear from senior European Commission officials, ports, the hydrogen supply chain and the maritime sector.

The North Sea Region is already a major producer of hydrogen and there are ambitious plans to increase green hydrogen production, develop import and export routes in the North Sea and receive hydrogen imports from across the World.  The European Commission envisages the North Sea as a major import corridor and the International Energy Agency has said the Region “leads the development of low-emission hydrogen as a new energy carrier. This region accounts for around half of Europe’s total hydrogen demand and has a vast and untapped renewable energy potential in the North Sea.”

The Conference looks at ways in which such a key corridor should develop and the way ports and the maritime sector can work with the EU and national governments to achieve this objective. The Conference will look at the growing importance of ports in hydrogen strategies, the inclusion of ports in EU policy documents since the RePower EU initiative and the way in which ports are planning for the increased use of hydrogen.  The issue of the transportation of hydrogen and its derivatives will also be discussed.

The maritime sector is a hard-to-abate sector with hydrogen and its derivatives playing a pivotal role in its decarbonisation.  New approaches to vessel design are essential and we will look at the role of classification societies in the process. We will examine the increasing use of fuel cells in short sea shipping and the growing appeal of ammonia as a fuel.

Some North Sea countries will be exporters of hydrogen while others will be major importers.  The Conference will outline these flows as well as looking at potential imports from across the World and their contribution to the development of a green hydrogen market.

Co-operation across the North Sea will be essential if the North Sea is to become a strategic hydrogen corridor.  The next part of the programme will give some examples of co-operation such as the North Sea Hydrogen Valley Ports project and the development of Green Shipping Corridors.  National and Regional Governments have also promoted co-operation in the form of MoUs and other agreements.  The Conference will look at the developing links between Scotland and Northern Germany.

European Policy Solutions and NS HyMaP would like to thank RINA for its financial support in the organisation of this Conference.

Agenda