Two start dates for onshore power supply at berth and the grounds for exception (EU Regulation 2023/1805 Article 6)

Say a containership is moored at a quayside somewhere in Europe. While it sits there it runs its generators to make electricity. Article 6 of FuelEU (EU Regulation 2023/1805) stops that from a certain point on and requires the ship to connect to onshore power.

That point is not a single one. Article 6 sets two dates and splits ports between them. It then lists eight grounds on which a ship does not have to connect. Which of the two dates catches the port, and which door is open on the day, have to be read together.

Only containerships and passenger ships carry the connection obligation

4. Paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 shall apply to: (a) containerships; (b) passenger ships.

Paragraphs 1 to 3 create the obligation, and paragraph 4 pins the ship types those three reach down to two. Bulk carriers and tankers are not in it. The first question in reading Article 6 is not the date but the ship type.

There are two start dates and what separates them is the port

1. From 1 January 2030, a ship moored at the quayside in a port of call which is covered by Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1804 and which is under the jurisdiction of a Member State shall connect to OPS and use it for all its electrical power demand at berth.

2. From 1 January 2035, a ship moored at the quayside in a port of call which is not covered by Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1804, which is under the jurisdiction of a Member State and where the quay is equipped with available OPS shall connect to that OPS and use it for all its electrical power demand at berth.

The first date is 1 January 2030, and it reaches a port of call covered by Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1804. FuelEU does not write out which ports those are; it hands the question to another regulation. What the ship checks is not whether equipment is visible on the quay but whether the port falls under that provision.

The second date is 1 January 2035, and it reaches a port of call that Article 9 does not cover. One more condition attaches here. The quay has to be equipped with available OPS. Where there is no equipment, the date passes without an obligation arising.

Neither provision asks for the connection alone. It asks for a state in which all its electrical power demand at berth is met from it.

A Member State can pull the date forward and extend it to anchorage

From 1 January 2030 until 31 December 2034, a Member State may impose the connection obligation early on ports under its jurisdiction that Article 9 does not cover. It can designate parts of a port rather than the whole port. A procedure attaches in exchange.

The Member State shall notify its decision imposing such requirement to the Commission a year prior to the application thereof. Such decision must apply from the beginning of a reporting period.

The notification goes to the Commission a year before the requirement applies, and the decision applies from the day a reporting period starts. The Commission publishes it in the Official Journal of the European Union and keeps an updated list of the ports concerned publicly available.

Paragraph 11 opens one more door by the same procedure. A Member State may place the same obligation on containerships and passenger ships at anchorage in a port under its jurisdiction or in parts of it. In both cases what the ship reads is the list, not the quay. And the obligation does not switch on in the middle of a reporting period.

Eight grounds close off the cases where a ship need not connect

5. Paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 shall not apply to ships that:

Each of the eight carries something the provision requires alongside it.

Ground	What the provision requires alongside
(a) Moored for less than two hours	Calculated from the arrival and departure times monitored under Article 15
(b) All demand met by zero-emission technology	Meets the general requirements in Annex III and is specified in the acts adopted
(c) Unscheduled port call	Unforeseen circumstances, not on a systematic basis, for safety or saving life at sea
(d) No connection points	No OPS connection points available in that port
(e) Grid stability at risk	Shore power available falls short of the ship’s power demand at berth
(f) Installations not compatible	The onboard installation is certified to Annex II to Regulation (EU) 2023/1804
(g) Emergency or force majeure	Immediate risk to life, the ship or the environment, for a limited period
(h) Maintenance or functional tests	Connection kept, at the request of a competent authority or a recognised organisation

Grounds (d), (e) and (f) are cases where the ship tried to connect and could not, and (g) and (h) are cases where onboard generation is needed regardless of the connection. Grounds (a) and (c) fall out on the nature of the port call itself. The only state the ship chooses in advance is (b).

The zero-emission technologies behind (b) sit in a table in Annex III, and the Commission can add technologies by delegated act. The acceptance criteria are set by implementing acts. A technology outside the list does not open this door. What a ship gains by changing fuel comes back through a different provision, not through Article 6.

1. For the calculation of the GHG intensity of the energy used on board by a ship, from 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2033 a multiplier of ‘2’ can be used to reward the ship for the use of RFNBO. The methodology for this calculation is set out in Annex I.

Article 5 rewards a ship that uses RFNBO with a multiplier in the GHG intensity calculation. That is a reward inside the calculation, not permission to run the generators at the quay.

From 2035 a cap on port calls attaches to three of the grounds

10. From 1 January 2035, in ports falling under the requirements of Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1804, it shall only be possible to apply the exceptions provided for in paragraph 5, points (d), (e) and (f) to a maximum number of port calls corresponding to 10 % of a ship’s total number of port calls that took place during a reporting period, rounded up to the nearest whole number, where relevant, or to a maximum of 10 port calls during the relevant reporting period, whichever is lower.

The cap falls on (d), (e) and (f). The three cases where the ship tried to connect and could not are the capped ones. The value is the lower of two numbers. They are 10% of the ship’s total port calls in the reporting period, rounded up where relevant, and 10 port calls.

Some port calls are not counted. Where the company demonstrates, on the basis of the exchange of information in paragraph 8, that it could not reasonably have known it would be unable to connect, that call drops out of the count. The provision names the material for that demonstration.

Relying on an exception depends on what was notified before entry

8. Ships shall inform in advance the competent authority of the Member State of the port of call or any duly authorised entity prior to entry into ports about their intention to connect to OPS or their intention to use a zero-emission technology in application of paragraph 5, point (b). Ships that intend to connect to OPS shall also indicate the amount of power they expect to require during that port call.

The ship notifies two things before entry. One is whether it intends to connect to OPS or to use the zero-emission technology under (b). The other, where it intends to connect, is the amount of power it expects to require during that port call. The authority receiving the notification confirms to the ship whether connection is available.

That exchange is the material for the demonstration in the previous section. Where the ship said it would connect, was told connection was available, and then could not connect at the quay, the company lands on the side of not having reasonably known. Where nothing was notified, there is no material.

The ship makes neither the determination nor the record. The competent authority of the Member State of the port of call, or a duly authorised entity, records in the FuelEU database without delay that an exception under paragraph 5 applied, and that a ship failed to meet paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 where no exception applied. So what the ship has to leave behind is not its own view that an exception fits. It is what was notified before entry, what came back, and the arrival and departure times of that port call.

Worth confirming

The passages above come from Articles 6 and 5 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1805. Which ports the first date catches is set by Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1804, and the scope of zero-emission technology is filled in by the Commission’s delegated and implementing acts. Whether a Member State pulled the date forward or extended it to anchorage is checked against the list the Commission publishes. Which list the port of call sits on, whether the quay has connection equipment, and where the pre-arrival notification goes are where the actual judgement starts.