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Dover identifies next steps on electric shipping journey

[ September 19, 2023   //   ]

The Port of Dover and its partners have identified the business case for a Short Straits green corridor under the second phase of the Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition (CMDC) by the Department for Transport and Innovate UK.

Since January 2023, 10 consortium partners have collaborated to determine the feasibility of electrification and the route map for the journey ahead for routes between Dover, Calais and Dunkirk.

In January 2023, the second round of the CMDC commenced with the 10 operational partners, which include the University of Kent, WMG, Schneider Electric, SSE, Ikigai Capital, JG Maritime Solutions, ABB, DFDS and Irish Ferries.

They found that decarbonisation of the route, due to the scale of the goods carried across the Short Straits will save 8% of UK international marine emissions.

However, much more knowledge of the technical provisions is required to deliver decarbonisation of ferries at the Port of Dover – including a mean power demand of 60MW for 13 fully electric ferries and a peak demand of 162MW.

Dover’s head of environment, Vicki Beatty, said: “The next step to progress this work is the design of the physical connection for the future electric ferries – which represents the challenge of needing to be compatible across the three sister ports of the route, and the three ferry operators who maintain it – and the optimisation of ferry schedules to enable the charging of vessels.”

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