Study Maps Electric Shipping Highway From English Channel to Baltic Powered by Offshore Wind

A whitepaper by Stillstrom by Maersk, Baltic Energy Island, and Port of Roenne has set out how offshore wind farms and grid infrastructure around Bornholm, Denmark, could serve as a blueprint for large-scale maritime electrification across Northern Europe, enabling ferries, cargo vessels, and offshore vessels to draw renewable power both in port and at sea. The study introduces the concept of Offshore Power Zones where vessels access electricity directly while underway, and concludes that combining these with electrified ports and offshore wind infrastructure could establish an electric shipping highway stretching from the English Channel through the North Sea into the Baltic Sea.

 

Scale of the Opportunity and the Bornholm Blueprint

 

Approximately 37,000 cargo vessels pass Bornholm each year, consuming around 3 million tonnes of fuel and emitting approximately 10 million tonnes of CO2 annually. Full electrification of this traffic could require around 17 TWh of electricity per year, replacing roughly €2 billion in fossil fuel imports with domestic renewable power. The Bornholm Energy Island project is positioned as the enabling infrastructure for this transition, connecting offshore wind generation, transmission infrastructure, and maritime transport in a way that demonstrates how energy and shipping sectors, which have historically been planned independently, can be integrated into a coherent decarbonisation system. Baltic Energy Island chief executive Søren Møller Christensen has described the opportunity as linking sectors that have traditionally operated in silos, arguing that the resulting integration can support both decarbonisation and competitiveness simultaneously.

 

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Offshore Power Zones and Port Electrification

 

The whitepaper introduces Offshore Power Zones as a practical mechanism for delivering renewable electricity to vessels while they are at sea rather than only when berthed in port, addressing the challenge that many voyages involve long periods between port calls during which vessels continue burning fossil fuel. The ability to charge vessel batteries or supply hotel loads directly from offshore infrastructure while transiting shipping lanes would extend the reach of electrification beyond the port environment and substantially reduce total voyage emissions. Port of Roenne on Bornholm is used as a case study in how future requirements for ferry charging, shore power, and electrification initiatives will drive new approaches to port infrastructure planning. As a TEN-T Comprehensive port supporting ferry routes, cargo operations, cruise calls, and offshore wind activities, Roenne illustrates the multi-sector demand for power capacity at ports that sit at the intersection of maritime transport and renewable energy development.

 

Policy Requirements and the Investment Signal

 

Stillstrom chief executive Kristian Borum Jørgensen has identified power availability in the right locations and at sufficient capacity as the critical bottleneck for maritime electrification, and has called for early investment in offshore wind, transmission infrastructure, and charging solutions to close that gap. He has also emphasised that strong policy frameworks including the EU Emissions Trading System, FuelEU Maritime, and the Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Regulation must keep pace with infrastructure development to give shipowners and other stakeholders the confidence to commit capital to electrification. The combination of regulatory certainty and infrastructure investment is essential because neither alone is sufficient to shift a capital-intensive industry with long asset lifetimes and high fuel infrastructure switching costs. Port of Roenne business development manager Maja Felicia Bendsen has reinforced that maritime electrification is as much a question of infrastructure, grid capacity, and long-term planning as it is of vessels and batteries, situating the port's role as a central enabler of the broader transition rather than a passive beneficiary of technology advancement.