European Ports Without Shore-Side Electricity (SSE/OPS) — Status and Plans as of 2026

07/28/2026

A survey of European ports that, as of 2026, have not yet applied/used Shore-Side Electricity (SSE), Onshore Power Supply (OPS), Alternative Maritime Power (AMP), High-Voltage Shore Connection (HVSC), or “cold ironing” — but are planning, tendering, or building it.

1. Why this list exists now: the regulatory driver

Two overlapping EU laws are forcing the issue:

• AFIR (Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation, EU 2023/1804) — requires TEN-T core and comprehensive maritime ports to install OPS at berths handling large container and passenger/cruise ships, largely by 31 December 2029.
• FuelEU Maritime (EU 2023/1805) — from 1 January 2030, container and passenger ships over 5,000 GT must connect to and use OPS (or an equivalent zero-emission technology) at quaysides in TEN-T ports; from 1 January 2035 this extends to any EU port that already has OPS installed.

Independent audits (DNV for Transport & Environment, July 2025; TT Club, Jan 2026) found that only around 20% of the OPS connections required by 2030 are installed or contracted EU-wide, and that of 31 major ports studied, only four (Algeciras, Livorno, Świnoujście, Valletta) had more than half of what they need. Cruise terminals are further along (~38%) than container terminals (~11%). This means the great majority of European ports — including many very large ones — are still in the “planning/tendering/construction” phase rather than operating SSE.

The list below groups ports by sea region. For each, it gives: current status, what is planned, target dates, and funding source where known. “Comprehensive” here means as broad a cross-section as available reporting allows (major TEN-T ports plus notable secondary/island/cruise ports); it is not an exhaustive inventory of every harbour in Europe, since hundreds of small ports have no public OPS roadmap at all.

2. Western Mediterranean — Italy

Italy has probably the largest and most detailed national pipeline, backed by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR): around €700 million (some sources cite €400m PNRR + a further ~€570m in EU-approved state aid running to 2033) targeting at least 15 cold-ironing installations across ~10–50 TEN-T ports.

Livorno is a partial exception — it already has 12–45 MW of shore-power capacity for cruise ships (since 2015/2018) — but its Darsena Europa expansion (due late 2026) is adding a third berth with new shore-power capability, so it remains a live “planning/expansion” case relevant to this list.

3. Western Mediterranean — Spain

Spain’s state port authority (Puertos del Estado) has approved roughly €950 million–€1.6 billion for dock electrification/OPS across the national port system, with €280 million earmarked in the 2026 budget alone (up from 13% to 17.5% of investment share).

Barcelona and Cádiz (Bay of Cádiz) have made real progress (Barcelona: 219 ferry OPS connections completed by April 2026, container-terminal OPS at BEST terminal; Cádiz: Spain’s first state-system cruise-ship OPS connection, inaugurated March 2026) but both are flagged by the DNV/T&E study as still lagging behind their 2030 targets for the cruise segment specifically — i.e., partially electrified, not yet fully compliant.

4. Western Mediterranean — France

Marseille-Fos is a rare full success story (three simultaneous cruise-ship OPS connections activated April 2026, 108 MW capacity, 100% renewable) and is included here only for contrast — it is not on the “still needs to build it” list.

5. Eastern Mediterranean / Adriatic — Greece

Greece’s Ministry of Maritime Affairs, working with HEDNO (grid operator) and funded partly via the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), has a €585 million Port Upgrade Plan targeting cold ironing at 23 ports by 2029. Virtually the entire Greek port system is currently without OPS and in the feasibility/tender stage.

Note: Killini is the exception — the EU-funded Elemed project (with Cyprus’s Limassol and Slovenia’s Koper) delivered the first operational Eastern-Mediterranean OPS connection there.

6. Adriatic — Croatia

Academic case studies (2023) found no concrete cold-ironing implementation plans yet existed for Croatia’s state-owned ports, though experts confirmed strong future feasibility and shipowner interest.

7. Iberian Atlantic — Portugal

8. North Sea / Low Countries

9. Baltic Sea

Świnoujście (Poland) is a partial exception — it is one of only four ports EU-wide with more than half its required OPS connections installed/contracted — but is listed for context, not as a “still to build” case. Klaipėda (Lithuania) similarly has partial coverage for at least one ship segment.

10. Black Sea

11. Eastern Mediterranean islands / small states — Cyprus and Malta

Valletta (Malta) is again a partial exception — one of the four EU ports with more than half its required connections installed/contracted — included here only for regional context.

12. United Kingdom (non-EU, but subject to comparable domestic pressure)

A dedicated DNV/T&E study of UK ports (2025) found that Southampton is the only UK port among those studied with any contracted/installed OPS, and even that installation (two high-voltage cruise connection points) can only serve one ship at a time due to National Grid capacity constraints, with no further connection points currently planned.

13. Ireland

14. Key caveats

• This list changes monthly. Several ports named here as “planning” (e.g., Marseille, Cádiz, parts of Barcelona) achieved partial operational status between the July 2025 audit and mid-2026 — underscoring how fast-moving this space is.
• “Not applied SSE” does not always mean zero electrification. Many ports have small-scale, low-voltage shore connections for repair yards, tugs, or fishing vessels; the gap discussed here is specifically the high-voltage OPS required for seagoing container, cruise, and passenger ships under AFIR/FuelEU Maritime.
• Grid capacity, not just port investment, is often the bottleneck. In the UK, Spain, and elsewhere, national electricity-grid upgrades (which can take 5–15 years for permitting and construction) are frequently cited as the limiting factor rather than port-side willingness.
• Costs are substantial: OPS installation runs roughly €200,000–€6 million per berth, excluding an estimated €584 billion in EU-wide grid upgrades needed to support full rollout.

Sources consulted (selected)

• Transport & Environment / DNV, European ports unplugged: The state of shore power infrastructure (July 2025) and underlying DNV study (incl. UK ports annex)
• TT Club shore-power analysis (via Bunker Index, Jan 2026)
• European Commission — AFIR (Regulation 2023/1804) and FuelEU Maritime (Regulation 2023/1805) official pages
• Ports Europe (PortSEurope) country/subject news feeds — Italy, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Romania, France, Belgium, Netherlands
• Port authority and national program announcements (Puertos del Estado, HEDNO/Greek Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Italian PNRR cold-ironing plan, Port of Barcelona/Rotterdam/Marseille-Fos)
• Academic case studies on Croatian ports (MDPI Sustainability, 2023) and Spanish legal framework (ResearchGate, 2025)