By
Alice Chambers |
Denmark’s first shore power facility opened at the Port of Aarhus on 20 June and welcomed its first cruise ship, lAIDA Cruises’ AIDAmar.
“We are proud that, as the first Danish port, we can now offer cruise ships green power directly from wind turbines when they are docked in Aarhus,” said Anne Zachariassen, chief operating officer at Port of Aarhus. “This is a very important step in a more sustainable direction.”
AIDA Cruises has been supporting the port in preparations for the newly built plant as part of its Green Cruising strategy. For example, AIDAsol was the first cruise ship to complete shoreside and shipboard integration tests at the port in April.
“We were the first cruise line to start using shore power in Europe,” said Felix Eichhorn, president of AIDA Cruises. “We show that we stand by our word, which we gave to our Cruise Baltic partners in 2022, and are pleased that our ships can now also use shore power in a Danish port. With our investments in this clean technology, we are actively supporting the European Union’s goals to build a shore power infrastructure in all major EU ports by 2030.”
AIDA Cruises began planning to equip its ships with shore power capabilities since 2004 but it wasn’t until 2017, when Europe’s first shore power facility opened in Hamburg Altona, that the line could begin regular shore-powered operations. Since 2021, AIDA ships have been connecting to shore power in Kiel and Rostock-Warnemünde, Germany, as well as ports in Norway and the UK.
AIDA Cruises aims to achieve net-carbon-neutral ship operations for its fleet by 2050 and will continue to invest in alternative energy sources, such as shore power, batteries and LNG, to achieve its goal.