The Port of Duisburg is not only building the largest container terminal in the European hinterland, but it is also the first terminal with completely climate-neutral operations using hydrogen, intelligent networking, and the ability to supply energy to neighboring districts.
Duisport, in collaboration with its international partners Cosco Shipping Logistics, Hupac SA, and the HTS Group, will build the trimodal Duisburg Gateway Terminal (DGT) on the former Coal Island by 2023.
As part of the “enerPort” project, duisport and the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT analyzed forward-looking technologies and developed customized models for Europe’s largest hinterland hub to implement a complete energy transformation of the world’s largest inland port. The next step in the “enerPort II” follow-up project (funding code: 03EN3046) is to install a sustainable energy system in the DGT that connects renewable energies, energy storage, consumers, and various hydrogen technologies. Fuel cell systems and hydrogen engines for power generation, as well as battery storage, are essential components.
“In the Duisburg Gateway Terminal, our operations will not only be state-of-the-art, digital and efficient, but also 100 percent climate-neutral. The largest development project since ‘logport I’ 22 years ago is a model project with a resonance far beyond the Port of Duisburg. It shows what the logistics and energy supply of tomorrow will look like,” says duisport CEO Markus Bangen.
Westenergie Netzservice GmbH, Rolls-Power Royce’s Systems business unit, Netze Duisburg GmbH, Stadtwerke Duisburg, and Stadtwerke Duisburg Energiehandel GmbH are also partners in the first hydrogen project to be implemented directly in the Port of Duisburg. The German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection is funding the project for four years as part of the “Hydrogen Technology Offensive.”
“Specifically, we will implement a sustainable, hydrogen-based energy concept that aims for a high level of self-sufficiency,” says Alexander Garbar, Deputy Head of Corporate Development and Sustainability Manager at duisport. “An intelligent local energy network couples and controls renewable energies in the form of photovoltaic and hydrogen-based combined heat and power plants with electrical and thermal energy storage systems as well as hydrogen storage and consumers such as onshore power, charging stations and crane systems. A future supply of adjacent districts will also be considered on a theoretical basis.”
“Inland ports are special urban districts with their own energy requirements,” says Dr. Anna Grevé, Head of the Electrochemical Energy Storage Department at Fraunhofer UMSICHT. “They provide a home for both national and international freight transport as well as other industries and trades, and are also often located close to residential areas. As a consequence, their further development must meet economic requirements alongside climate and environmental protection requirements.”
One special feature of the “enerPort II” project is its modular structure. This creates the conditions for an uninterrupted continuation of the transformation process, as follow-up or satellite projects can be integrated without any problems. For example, electrolyzers or hydrogen-powered locomotives. “This will make the terminal the anchor point and nucleus for the transformation process of the entire Port of Duisburg,” says Alexander Garbar.
Following two construction phases, the DGT will implement a groundbreaking modal split that will see 40% of freight transported by rail, 40% transported by inland waterway vessel, and only 20% transported by truck on the road. Six gantry cranes, twelve block train tracks with a length of 730 meters, and several berths for inland waterway vessels will be housed in 240,000 square meters of terminal space.
Shunting locomotives powered by hydrogen will be used at the DGT in the future. Otherwise, no reach stackers are used; all goods movements are managed digitally. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, each barge at the dock has an onshore power connection.
The new large-scale terminal is already being hailed as a test bed and model for climate-friendly inland ports around the world. The DGT will also increase duisport’s handling capacity, with China trains, for example, increasing to 100 units per week.
The follow-up project to “enerPort I” is “enerPort II.” The project’s goal was to see where inland ports could get help with their energy transformation. As a result, a method for combining, optimizing, and evaluating various energy plants and Power-to-X technologies has been developed.
