Swedish, Finnish Ports Join Forces on Green Technologies

Ports of Stockholm together with three Finnish Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T) ports – Turku, Naantali and HaminaKotka – and the compatriot ferry company Viking Line, will invest USD 8.5 million in an effort to reduce the environmental impact from shipping in the Baltic Sea.

The parties met in Turku in late October to start off an EU-funded joint project aiming to improve the maritime links between Sweden and Finland.

The joint project includes preparations and construction of waste water reception facilities and installations to enable ro-ro and ro-pax ferries to connect to onshore power supply.

It also includes planning for reception of scrubber sludge and LNG bunkering.

“By investing in environmental services, our ports create the possibility for our customers not only to comply with existing environmental regulations, but also to go beyond legislations. These are important measures to create a sustainable maritime link between Finland and Sweden,” Christian Ramberg, Port of Turku CEO, said.

The project runs until the end of December 2016 and has been granted EU-funding from the Connecting Europe Facility programme up to a maximum of USD 2.7 million.