Delo Group, Russia’s largest transport and logistics holding, and Atomenergoprom, a company of state atomic corporation Rosatom consolidating all Russian civil assets, signed on April 13 an agreement for joint actions to promote switching of logistics terminals to low-carbon energy sources.
The agreement was signed on the sidelines of the International exhibition TransRussia-2021 by Delo Management Company CEO Igor Yakovenko and Rosatom Business Development head Ekaterina Lyakhova.
One of the first steps this agreement provides for is the supply of electricity generated from wind energy to the largest terminals in the Azov-Black Sea region of Russia: NUTEP Container Terminal and KSK Grain Terminal in Novorossiysk – both are a part of DeloPorts, a stevedore asset of the group).
Atomenergopromsbyt, which is part of NovaWind, the wind energy division of Rosatom, acted as a partner in the project.
According to the agreement, from January 1, 2022, the terminals will be powered entirely by wind-generated electricity, Rosatom said.
KSK and NUTEP became the first large port infrastructure facilities in Russia to announce a switch to renewable energy.
“Rosatom is consistently implementing a strategy for low-carbon energy production based on nuclear and wind power,” Lyakhova said. “Currently, more and more companies are choosing the path to sustainable business development. In many ways, it becomes the key to competitiveness and long-term commercial success. And I hope that today’s agreement is only the first step towards the switch of enterprises in the Russian logistics industry to low-carbon energy sources,” she added.
The annual handling capacity of NUTEP is 700,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), the container turnover of the terminal in 2020 reached 487,000 TEUs. The share of NUTEP in the container turnover of the Azov-Black Sea basin is 61%, in Russia – 9%. The terminal’s customers include the largest international lines. The handling capacity of the KSK grain terminal is 6 million tons per year, up to 7 million tons after the reconstruction is completed in 2021; in 2020, the terminal handled more than 5.1 million tons of grain. The share of KSK in Russian grain exports in 2020 was 12%.
The “green port” project will enable the use of electricity generated from low-carbon energy sources (RES) to facilitate exports from Russia with minimal CO2 emissions, which, in turn, will affect the reduction in NUTEP and KSK’s estimate indicators in reporting on indirect greenhouse gas emissions and other indirect carbon emissions for their customers. Depending on the methodology adopted by the European Union, the indicators could reduce the “carbon tax” on exports to the EU for Russian exporters.
