More cruise ships ready for shore power in 2024

In recent years, Aarhus has welcomed more and more cruise ships and guests. At present, Port of Aarhus expects 60 cruise ships to call at the port in 2024. They bring with them a record number of guests. It looks like the city and the region can welcome over 200,000 cruise guests this year. That's an increase of almost 40 percent compared to the previous year, says Morten Kusk, Commercial Manager at Aarhus Port.

We see a trend where larger cruise ships choose to visit Aarhus. So even though we currently expect slightly fewer arrivals, we can look forward to significantly more cruise guests visiting the city and the entire region. This is positive because it means something for the city's and the region's business and tourism

— says Morten Kusk.

In 2024, a number of cruise ships from the German shipping company AIDA will call at Aarhus Port. For example, AIDAnova with around 6,500 guests on board will call 13 times.

Focus on green transition

Last year, Danish history was made at the cruise dock in Aarhus. This happened when Aarhus Port inaugurated Denmark's first, and so far only, shore power facility for cruise ships. This means that cruise ships can turn off their diesel engines when they are at the cruise dock in Aarhus and instead connect to the green power from the shore power facility.

Port of Aarhus experiences great interest in the facility from the cruise companies, which are themselves in the process of transitioning their ships to a greener future, says Morten Kusk.

"We expect that up to 75 percent of the cruise ships calling at the cruise dock will connect to our shore power facility this year. This is really a positive development that emphasizes that the cruise companies want and work for the green transition," says Morten Kusk, adding:

The cruise dock in Aarhus is close to the city, which is of great value to the guests, who have easy access to the city and the region. But it is also important that we take into account the city and the local environment. Therefore, it is crucial for us to remove local pollution and noise. We do this with the shore power facility, which becomes an increasingly important competitive parameter for the cruise companies.

In 2023, Port of Aarhus introduced a new fee model that makes it more expensive for cruise ships that do not connect to the shore power facility to call at Aarhus. The fee model came into effect on January 1, 2024, and imposes an additional fee of 75 Danish øre per gross tonnage on cruise ships calling at the cruise dock and not connecting to the shore power facility.