SECOND NORTH SEA HYDROGEN PORTS & MARITIME CONFERENCE

About the Seminar

                                                                                                                 CONFERENCE 

                                                                                                             ‘ TARGET ZERO’

                                                                                 SECOND NORTH SEA HYDROGEN PORTS AND

                                                                                                        MARITIME CONFERENCE                          

                                                                                                        Tuesday 11 February 2020

                                                                   Greater Birmingham and West Midlands Conference Centre,

                                                                        Floor 6, Avenue d’Auderghem 22-26, B-1040 Brussels.

 ‘Target Zero’ is the Second North Sea Hydrogen Ports and Maritime Conference and will be held in Brussels on Tuesday 11 February 2020.  It is a One Day Conference and will take place at the Greater Birmingham and West Midlands Conference Centre in the Avenue d’Auderghem.  The Conference will also see the launch of the North Sea hydrogen Ports and Maritime Community (NS HyMaP). The Community will be initially established as an Information Exchange/ Knowledge Network but we have ambitions to promote the North Sea as a ‘test-bed’ for hydrogen applications in the ports and maritime sectors.  For those participants wishing to opt into membership of NS HyMaP, the Conference fee will also include six months free membership. 

The first North Sea Hydrogen Ports and Maritime Conference was held in Edinburgh (March 2019) and provoked much interest. This included an Initiatives Group made up of public and private sector partners which was formed to look at the formation of a North Sea Hydrogen Ports and Maritime Community.

There  have also been significant developments in the use of hydrogen as a zero emission energy vector for the ports and maritime sectors and these include initiatives at EU level, internationally and across the North Sea Region.

After a lot of preparation, the new European Commission took office at the end of November 2019 and has begun to tackle the problem of climate change ’head on’ in its Green Deal and related initiatives. The new draft EU budget reflects this new policy direction and there are potential opportunities for hydrogen in a wide range of funding programmes. These opportunities include an enhanced and enlarged Horizon Europe Programme and the introduction of the EU Innovation Fund in 2020. This Fund could be worth up to €4 billion from 2020 to 2030 as its source finance will be the receipts from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. There are also opportunities from funding programmes in DGs Move and Energy through the Blending Call Facility and other initiatives.

The Conference will also look at international developments. The creation of the “Getting to Zero Coalition” in September 2019  has the objective to “have commercially viable Zero Emission shipping operating along deep sea trade routes by 2030.” Hydrogen must play a key role in the development of clean deep sea shipping.   The development of zero emissions vessels in short sea shipping will be an important step in the moves to zero emission deep sea shipping and the North Sea plays a pivotal role in both short sea and deep sea shipping.

The Coalition was one of the practical outcomes from the UN Climate Change Summit in New York. Elsewhere the H2 Ports Initiative has been developed by the FCH-JU and the US and Japanese Governments.   Initiatives to introduce greater levels of Green Finance through the Poseidon Principles will also be discussed.

It is important that the North Sea ports, maritime and hydrogen industries respond positively to these developments. The North Sea will be an important ‘test bed’ for new hydrogen applications. The Conference will look at the actions and strategies of national governments such as the Clean Maritime Plan launched by the UK Government in July 2019.

During spring and summer 2019, a number of INTERREG projects were approved that developed the use of hydrogen in ports and the maritime sector. This has enabled the retrofit of a number of barges and pleasure crafts in the inland waterways of the North Sea and North West Europe Regions. It will also facilitate port planning for the greater use and manufacture of hydrogen.  These projects will complement the excellent work being funded by current EU and national government funded projects include HySeas III, Flagships, HyDIME, the development of hydrogen ferries, the FELMAR project and Dual Ports.

One of the outcomes of the initial North Sea Conference has been to create a small Initiative Group looking at the way in which the Ports and Maritime Sectors could work more closely with the hydrogen sector in the North Sea. The Group will outline its activities and there will be a panel discussion to explore how the ports, maritime and hydrogen sectors can work more closely together to accelerate the use of hydrogen applications in the North Sea Region.

The effects of climate change are becoming more apparent by the day and the need for action is becoming urgent. This Conference outlines developments in relation to the use of hydrogen in the ports and maritime sectors and it crucially looks to the future to see how hydrogen applications can complete the energy transition in the North Sea ports and maritime sector.

For further details contact Jon Jordan: e-mail: [email protected]  ; phone +44 1259 781404 or go to the European Policy Solutions website www.europeanpolicysolutions.com

Conference fee:   The fee for the Conference is €100,00 and this includes the option for six months membership of the newly formed North Sea Hydrogen Ports and Maritime Community (NS HyMaP.)

Agenda