DAFNI organized the East Med Regional workshop on Thursday 23 November 2023, in a hybrid mode, onsite in Athens, Greece and online via zoom meetings. The main language of the event was Greek, but a translator service was employed in order to provide live translation to the non-greek audience who attended online.

The main goal of EU project SEANERGY is to demonstrate the importance of supporting energy efficiency, local green energy, use of alternative fuels and green port transportation to contribute in the mitigation of climate change, improvement of the natural environment and the living conditions in cities with ports.

In the context of SEANERGY, three Master Plans are developed – one for each pilot port, which will be useful consulting, non-binding tools that can be exploited by the port stakeholders in the designing and the implementation of infrastructure upgrade projects towards clean energy and digital transition.

The workshop started with a short welcome and introduction from DAFNI director Kostas Komninos and salutations from:

• Evangelos Kyriazopoulos, Secretary General of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy
• Antonios Stylianou, Chairman of the Board of the Cyprus Ports Authority
• Nikolaos Livadaras, President of the Municipal Port Fund of Syros | Mayor of Hermoupolis-Syros
• Alexios Athanasiou, Elected Mayor of Hermoupolis-Syros

Then, Petros Markopoulos (DAFNI) introduced the project to the participants. Reza Karimpour (Magellan Circle) provided an overview of the “Current EU Policies for Green Transition of Ports”. The first session was concluded by Anas Allamoush (WMU) who presented the preliminary findings from SEANERGY’s studies on port decarbonization. These include, the group analysis port stakeholders and their interests, the categorization of emissions resulted from port activities, the drivers for the port energy transition as well as the identified related barriers (economic, information, split incentive, managerial, social & human element, policy, technical) and recommended solutions for energy transition.

The first panel session moderated by DAFNI director, Kostas Komninos aimed at the exchange of opinions on policy developments and economic incentives. The participants were representatives of the Regulatory Authority of Energy and Water (RAEW), the Greek DSO (HEDNO), academia (National Technical University of Athens & University of Aegean) and private sector (Lloyd’s Register).

The second panel session was moderated by Head of DAFNI’s Energy Transition Dpt, Petros Markopoulos, aimed at the exchange of Best Practices of Port Decarbonization and Innovations. The session was introduced by Ioannis Prousalidis, Associate Professor, School of Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering, of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) while representatives from private sector elaborated on decarbonization projects in the ports of Killini, Pireaus and Igoumenitsa.

The event closed with a presentation from Vassiliki Tsoukala, NTUA professor, Director of the Laboratory of Harbour Works (School of Civil Engineering).