During 2020, the 14 terminals of the Port of Barcelona that are eligible for environmental discounts invested upwards of €1.7 million in projects aimed at decarbonising port operations, reducing emissions, generating renewable energy and starting energy transformation.
In response to these sustainable initiatives, the Port of Barcelona subsidised these terminals with about €900,000 in discounts in 2020. Discounts in 2019 totalled €886,000, while investments made by the terminals amounted to €1.6 million.
The Port encourages the terminals to make environmental investments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions through measures to improve energy saving or energy efficiency, generating renewable energy with photovoltaic panels or fostering electric mobility
stated Mercè Conesa, President of the Port of Barcelona.
Environmental discounts represent between 15 and 20% of the activity rate of each terminal. These discounts are “very significant in quality terms, since 50% of the 14 terminals under the scheme are expected to invest in rooftop photovoltaic electrical generation in 2021, helping to generate renewable energy”, explans Jordi Vila, Head of the Environment of the Port of Barcelona.
In addition to offering environmental discounts to its concession-holders, the Port of Barcelona applies several environmental discounts to shipowners to promote improvements in vessels in terms of efficiency, the use of natural gas and batteries, and reducing atmospheric emissions. In this case, the annual discounts applied by the Port of Barcelona amount, on average, to around €2.3 million.
Barcelona was the first port in the Spanish port system to start applying discounts to ships using liquefied natural gas (LNG) and is currently the only port in Spain to apply discounts to cruise ships for reducing NOx emissions.
The idea behind these discounts for shipowners is to attract the cleanest and least polluting ships to our port, which helps improve air quality throughout the Port
added Jordi Vila.
