Dynamic Techno-Economical Scenario Simulation Model for Sustainable Waterborne Activities and Transport

Project Information

NEEDS

Grant agreement ID: 101056938

DOI

10.3030/101056938

Project closed

EC signature date 4 April 2022

Start date 1 May 2022

End date 31 October 2023

Funded under

• Climate, Energy and Mobility

Total cost

€ 523 437,50

EU contribution

€ 523 437,00

Coordinated by

STICHTING MARITIEM RESEARCH INSTITUUT NEDERLAND
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NEEDS (Dynamic Techno-Economical Scenario Simulation Model for Sustainable Waterborne Activities and Transport)

Reporting period: 2022-05-01 to 2023-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Sustainable energy deployment within an existing transport network needs timely coordination of all stakeholders, including energy production capacity, storage, bunkering logistics in harbours, and ships as end-users. The EU-funded NEEDS project aims at developing a dynamic techno-economic to assess different scenarios at regional level. The project proposes a framework and methodology to simulate maritime or inland regions, containing regional facts on the transport network, effect of environmental conditions on ship performance and emissions, fleet evolution, global well-to-wake GHG emission level, requirements and energy needs. Scenarios will allow to identify bottlenecks and needs to make such transition a success. The model will support the EU, the regional waterborne community, and the harbours, offering an assessment of the most efficient pathways towards their energy transition on local and regional levels.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The first step in the project has been to develop a generic model defining numerically a region with all possible elements that can compose the waterborne network and databases necessary to perform a simulation over a period of 30 years.
Such generic served as a basis for the two regional applications that were performed in the second part of the project.

Information on the fleet, the routes, the network of harbours, the transport capacity and type of engine and energy carriers were gathered for the Rhine region on one hand, and for the Greek region on the other hand. The fleet was discretized in families to cover all variations in ship type and operational profiles, without having to model each single vessel when possible. Environmental data for the considered regions were also gathered through different open sources and linked to the regional mapping, the routes and the position of the vessels during their operations.

The current fleet characteristics and energy carriers were first used as input to define the to represent the current status. Alternative energy carriers and power systems were also developed for each simulated vessels, including the costs of refit or new build and the consequences on operational performance, environmental performance and transport capacity. Quite a large part of the work and interaction in the group was to actually define and run different scenario's.
The scenarios performed were then analysed to gather trends, relationships and draw conclusion of consequences of choices made in the different scenarios.

Both regions and all scenarios performed were made accessible through an open-access portal, allowing for interactive navigation through the results and simulations.

The main achievement of such project was to show that it is possible to model numerically at regional scale a complete transport network and waterborne ecosystem. The second achievement was to show through two application case that it is possible to perform dynamic techno-economical studies thanks to that model, and simulation different scenarios in those regions. This framework is ready to use and mature enough to model additional scenarios for the modelled regions but also allows the possibility to define new fleet, new networks and cover any region worldwide when detailed information on the current situation is available.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The NEEDS simulation models offer a many benefits in order to assess different scenario for potential pathways towards zero-emission waterborne transport.
Creating a region is in itself already an interesting exercise to define the current settings for any stakeholder on that particular region.
Defining the scenarios and applying changes in parameters is also in itself a powerful exercise were many discussions take place and were policy, strategic decisions, investment, choices are at play.
Playing the scenarios provides a direct feedback on the consequences of the above mentioned choices. It also puts numbers in terms of emissions, costs, energy needs or logistics and infrastructure adaptations and needs.

The further development of the framework and its success will reside in its application in the coming months for new regions or new strategies. In order to ensure this, the simulations are being proposed as a service within contractual research. It is also proposed to share the development with a user-group who would like to participate in its development.