On Saturday, the “Aidanova”, the first cruise ship of the season, docked at the Ostseekai in Kiel.
The port is expecting 175 calls and over one million passengers this year. This year will also see the completion of one of the largest shore power facilities in Europe.
29 ships from 18 different shipping companies will call at Kiel this season, with up to three ships calling at the same time at weekends in midsummer. As in previous years, cruise ships will continue to call at the port into the winter months. Kiel is expecting over one million passengers for the third time in a row, which continues to make it one of the busiest cruise ports in Northern Europe.
A third of all calls this year will be made by ships from Aida Cruises. In addition to the “Aidanova”, which was built by Meyer Werft in 2018 and is the most frequent guest with 29 visits, “Aidabella” (22 calls) and “Aidaluna” (nine calls) are also expected. The “Aidabella” will also conclude the season in Kiel on November 3. Aida Cruises is also associated with the Port of Kiel as a partner and has sponsored Kiel Week, the world’s largest sailing event, since 2018. The company was able to exceed its forecast for last year and is looking forward to further growth this year.
Kiel has been investing in shore power expansion for years
The infrastructure in Kiel will also be completed this year with the construction of the shore power extension at the Ostseekai. The port already began the expansion in 2018 and has invested €50 million in the technology so far. Last year, more than half of the ferry and cruise calls were already supplied with shore power.
“We are on schedule to complete work on the expansion facility at the Ostseekai in the fall and will then have supply capacities for up to three cruise ships and four ferries,” said Dirk Claus, Managing Director of the Port of Kiel. He called it a “key step towards our personal environmental goals, which we want to achieve by fully supplying the ships with green electricity in the coming years.”
“We have an enormous demand for shore power in the cruise sector,” continued Claus. “We had originally planned a connection rate of 80% of all ocean cruise ships for this season. However, due to the construction work, which also affects the existing shore power system at the Ostseekai, there will be a technical outage lasting several weeks, which will affect around 19 calls. Accordingly, we expect a connection rate of around 70% this year.”
“Conclusive expansion” of the port
With the expansion facility at the Ostseekai, baggage handling in the terminal will also be comprehensively modernized and the associated processes optimized. The aim is to realize a “functionally and architecturally coherent expansion”, Port of Kiel announced. The extension to the shore power system at the Ostseekai, which is being funded by the federal and state governments, will go into operation in the fall.
Shore power is considered one of the key technologies for making shipping in ports more environmentally friendly. With the power supply from a corresponding system during berthing times, the ship’s engines can be switched off and, in addition to CO2, noise and pollutant emissions can be avoided. The implementation of the technology involves considerable investment for the ports and shipping companies. In terms of a sustainable concept, it is necessary that the electricity for the systems does not come from fossil fuels but from renewable energies. According to its own information, the Port of Kiel has been relying on European green electricity for its shore power supply for years.
