The ESG has said it welcomes the Governments announcement that they will be providing facilities at the Extension Jetty for vessels berthed alongside to be able to connect to shore power.

A statement from the ESG follows below:

ESG has campaigned for onshore power connection for vessels for several years to help reduce quayside pollution from vessels. 

We welcome yesterday’s announcement that the first facility for this will soon be installed at the Extension Jetty area. This is a busy, multi-use berthing facility that can produce excessive air and noise pollution on a regular basis and it is hoped that protocols for using the onshore connection or cold ironing, as it is also known, will be set in place to make this obligatory to use. 

The ESG also welcomes the announcement that other areas will soon be set up and look forward to future announcements on this expansion of cold ironing to cover other major berthing areas locally. 

Cold ironing could make a huge difference to air quality in Gibraltar as it is substituting polluting marine fuel use emissions in ship engines for much cleaner LNG emissions from the new power station.