Decarbonisation Innovation Challenges at Peel Ports

Challenge

Peel Ports had declared its intention to be carbon neutral by 2040, a target that needed to be achieved during a period of considerable change and uncertainty for the maritime industry. The UK Government’s Clean Maritime Plan had presented scenarios where UK ports’ electrical demand could rise from 20 GWh (2016) to 250 GWh by 2050, driven by demand for shoreside power. More ambitious scenarios had estimated up to 4,000 GWh, whilst air quality issues also needed to be addressed. Additionally, both east and west coasts of the UK were examining hydrogen production with carbon sequestration, requiring large infrastructure projects involving the ports.

Against this backdrop, Peel Ports’ Innovation Team had sought assistance to identify and assess decarbonisation challenges faced across their operations and to develop practical solutions. The company had wished to adopt a challenge-led approach, initially focusing on areas that could be implemented readily without requiring major capital expenditure decisions or causing operational disruption. This approach was intended to serve as a pilot for a more widespread rollout of decarbonisation initiatives.

Solution

A structured approach to identifying and addressing decarbonisation challenges were implemented:

1. Challenge Identification: Members of Peel Ports’ operational teams from across the business were invited to put forward challenges where opportunities might exist to reduce carbon emissions, reduce resource use, adopt circular economy models, or improve the natural environment.
2. Assessment Framework: A set of assessment criteria were developed and refined in collaboration with the Innovation Team. A standardised application form was created for potential challenge holders, requiring a description of the problem and comments on key assessment criteria:
   • Ability to produce a quick win to the challenge
   • Potential for cost and carbon impact
   • Any impact on the local community
   • Overall tractability of the problem
   • Potential disruption to operations
   • Ability to demonstrate outcomes
3. Broad Engagement: To ensure comprehensive problem identification, applicants were asked to describe challenges without proposing specific solutions at this stage. The process was communicated by the Innovation Team to the management of operational divisions at all of Peel Ports’ UK sites, with a one-month window provided for applications.
4. Rigorous Screening Process: An initial screen was conducted to identify challenges that were both sufficiently tractable and substantial. This was followed by detailed discussions with challenge holders to deepen understanding and assess each challenge more fully.
5. Quantitative Assessment: Each criterion was scored quantitatively on a 1-5 scale, and applications were then ranked based on total scores. These rankings were presented to the Innovation Team for final evaluation, resulting in a shortlist of five challenges selected for further investigation.
6. Solution Development: Close collaboration with challenge holders and the innovation team had led to the identification of potential solutions and suppliers by drawing upon a network of cleantech innovators and experts. Solutions from outside the maritime industry were introduced to address sub-marine sensing, hydraulics, cryogenics, biomass storage, electric mobility and software requirements.
7. Expert Collaboration: The Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, a research group at the University of Oxford, organised a specialised workshop to find solutions to silt build-up at ports. Drawing upon world-class expertise in fluid flow modelling, the workshop resulted in several easy-win actions that could be taken to assess their impact.

Outcome

The challenge-led approach to decarbonisation had delivered several significant outcomes:

1. Broadened Solution Scope: In several cases, the work had led to a broadening of the areas of applicability of solutions, extending the benefits beyond the initial challenges.
2. Strategic Progress: For power and fuel-related challenges, the initiative had demonstrated how addressing smaller, short-term challenges could feed into the company’s 2040 decarbonisation strategy by proving effectiveness in small-scale but representative environments.
3. Strategic Planning Tool: A Fuel Strategy Tool was developed that would allow the company to consider how to achieve net zero neutrality while simultaneously managing significant changes to its own operations, customer needs, and the infrastructure that its ports depended upon.
4. Access to Specialist Expertise: Peel Ports had commented that, without this assistance, they would have never been able to access the level of expertise provided, particularly in areas such as fluid flow modelling from the University of Oxford.
5. Innovation Framework Development: Based on the success of this pilot approach, Peel Ports had begun examining how to roll out a wider innovation model and had requested proposals for various options on how this might work.

This structured approach to innovation had enabled Peel Ports to make tangible progress towards its ambitious carbon neutrality goals whilst ensuring that solutions remained practical, cost-effective, and minimally disruptive to core operations.

Lewis McIntyre Managing Director Ports Services commented in the press “CLT are a great partner for us. They bring a wealth of cross sector experience and expertise and will support us in identifying and articulating challenges, then approaching the market in an appropriate way to drive innovation through our supply chain”.