Ships next month will be able to cold iron at the port of Lübeck, in what is considered to be Germany's most progressive environmental port project.

Lübeck port, the municipal power utility and Finnish paper company Stora Enso are co-operating on the project.  Classification society Germanischer Lloyd will certify Lübeck's onshower power supply plant.

"The Lübeck plant is the first to be certified in Europe and the first solely to use renewable energy," according to Ralf Giercke, environment officer of Lübeck's municipal utility.

Cold ironing - which allows ships to turn off their engines while at berth - involves connecting ships to shore-side electrical power, thereby cutting ships' bunker consumption and emissions while in port.

Three ships chartered by Stora Enso have been calling at Lübeck's Nordlandkai terminal once a week since June to test the cold-ironing facilities, which have taken 13 years of developing and testing.

The parties are also in talks with other owners willing to switch to onshore power, as well as with the ports of Bremen, Kiel and Rostock.

"Hamburg is interested in equipping its cruiseship terminal with the technology," Giercke told Lloyd's List.

The Siemens technology is currently producing just 10-15 megawatts.  A cruiseship would need twice this amount.

Stora Enso already uses cold ironing in the ports of Kemi and Oulu in the Gulf of Bothnia, Zeebrügge and Gothenburg.