Macarena Larrea Basterra
Basque Institute of Competitiveness - Deusto Foundation
Abstract
Ports act as a point of intersection between land and sea, ensuring territorial continuity, serving regional and local maritime traffic and linking peripheral and island areas. They are nodes from which multimodal logistics flows can be organized, using short sea shipping (SSS), rail and inland waterway links to minimize road congestion and energy consumption. Due to their location, ports can play a crucial role in the decarbonization agenda of countries and, in particular, of international logistics chains and facilitate economic growth between regions and countries.
This report aims to assess the role of ports in the energy transition from a double perspective, the port as a driver of port activity and as a link in maritime port clusters. After reviewing the leading trends in the sector, some of the main guidelines to which ports and the means of transport they connect are reviewed. Ports are presented as actors that have evolved from environmental concerns to resilient ports. A model of analysis based on a series of parameters is then developed to compare the progress in the energy transition of ports and is applied to the cases of Bilbao, Valencia, Rotterdam, and Los Angeles. The document ends with a section of conclusions.
