The Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA) announces that thanks to one of its EU-supported actions, another inland waterway vessel with pollution-reducing LNG engines, the “Sirocco”, has just been commissioned. This represents a key step in the realization of the “LNG Masterplan” project, one of the biggest innovation projects financed through the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) program, which was selected for funding under the 2012 TEN-T Multi-Annual Call.
Benefitting from over €40 million of EU support and implemented by a consortium of 33 companies and organizations from the public and private sectors across 12 EU Member States (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia) the “LNG Masterplan” consists of a series of studies and pilot deployments for LNG as fuel for inland vessels, as well as cargo transported on waterways and distributed via inland ports along the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers. The objective is to provide a platform for key public and private stakeholders to promote LNG uptake in the inland waterway sector and build the necessary regulatory framework for the safe transport and use of this clean fuel.
Besides commissioning the Sirocco, the project is also supporting the switch from traditional engines to LNG ones capable of substantially decreasing nitrogen oxides and particulate emissions – the main pollutants from inland waterway transport – as well as improving local air quality alongside waterways and ports.
The results of the “LNG Masterplan” project, due by December 2015, are expected to have a significant impact on LNG’s introduction on the European inland waterway networks and to promote this means of transport in general.
Source: The Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA).
