EU to Co-Fund Port of Civitavecchia’s Wave Energy Plans

The EU’s TEN-T Programme will co-fund two sustainable development initiatives totaling over €1 million in the Port of Civitavecchia in Italy: an innovative pilot energy production plant using sea waves, as well as a separate study on the development of rail and maritime transport connections to the port. The projects are expected to help reduce the port’s energy dependency and pollution, as well as ease transport flows. 

The first project is part of a larger action aiming to reduce the emissions produced by the services and the terminal activities of the port. The Port Authority is planning to install renewable energy systems expected to satisfy at least 55% of the port’s total energy needs by 2020 and implement new systems for the mobility inside the port, such as electric cars, buses and forklifts.

The project features a feasibility study and a pilot test to convert wave energy into electricity through a wave energy absorbs system expected to reduce the port’s dependency on conventional energy.

The second project will carry out a feasibility study, cost-benefit analysis and preliminary design for the new rail access to the port, as well as a market study for maritime and rail transport flow forecasts. It will also identify new destinations from and to the port.

More specifically, the studies will address the upgrade of the port’s railway yard, including its link to the national rail network, which in turn will lead to better port services and connections with the hinterland. The project will also support the port’s sustainable development through the analysis of the maritime and rail transport services market and current and future transport flows to and from the port.

The projects were selected for EU funding with the assistance of external experts under the TEN-T Annual Call 2013, priorities ‘Decarbonisation (oil substitution or environmental cost reduction)’ and ‘Maritime transport’. Their implementation will be monitored by INEA, the European Commission’s Innovation and Networks Executive Agency.

The projects are to be completed by December 2015.

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Press release; Image: INEA