Costa Cruises is working with Italian energy company Enel Group to explore the electrification of its larger ships as part of an effort to promote sustainability in the maritime industry.
The Italian travel brand (subsidiary of Carnival Corporation) said it would collaborate with Enel to explore projects to reduce emissions on its vessels when they are operating close to shore and in-port as well as advocating for the expansion of the use of cold ironing at more ports in Italy.
The project represents the first attempt for large cruise ships with the extensive power requirements of the hotel side of a ship as well as for maneuvering. Smaller expedition/passenger ships operating on the coast of Norway added batteries but have limited timespans of operation. Havila Kystruten claimed a record when its 15800-GT-ton ship Havila Castor navigated in Geirangerfjord (June 2022) for 3 hours on battery power.
Working with Enel, Costa Cruises plans to carry out a retrofit for a pilot case to eliminate emissions on one of the ships while entering/leaving port and on the dock. The plan is to install a battery power supply system, likely combined with a shore power/recharging system for the batteries. According to Costa, this would eliminate emissions from the ship for half a day between the time spent on the dock and maneuvering.
According to the General Manager of Costa Crociere, Mario Zanetti, the project is part of their ambitions to introduce a brand new generation of ships operating with net zero emissions by 2050.
Carnival Corp’s Costa Group was the first to introduce a large LNG-fueled cruise ship back in 2018 (for the sister-company AIDA), while Costa introduced its first LGN vessel in 2019.