The Onshore Connection – Harbour Clusters
The North Sea harbours are likely to play a critical onshore hub role in various energy transition aspects such as the logistics and installation of offshore equipment. Moreover the harbours around the North Sea are often nuclei for the landfall, consumption, conversion and intermediate storage of all types of energy and energy related commodities incl. CO₂. Harbours are often hosting many different logistic and industrial activities. Given that space is often limited in these harbour clusters, careful planning is needed in the integration of the onshore and offshore energy system. In order to prevent undue duplication and loss of synergies, a careful planning and division of tasks between the various port regions is needed.
Spatial impact on harbours (left) under Concentrated scenario and (right) Spread scenario is explored. The ‘Concentrated’ scenario assumes that the majority of the energy would land in the Port of Rotterdam, while the ‘Spread’ scenario assumes that the landfall is organised more distributed. Both the Concentrated and Spread scenarios demand for space requirements at ports which will be challenging to realise.