At the recent Green Tug Transition Programme (GTTP), Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal announced the centre’s plans to make India an international hub for green shipbuilding by 2030. Towards this goal, the government has set a target to operationalise the initial Green Tugs at all major ports by 2025.
A major port falls under the administrative purview of the Union Shipping Ministry, while a Tug, also known as a Tugboat, is a vessel that manoeuvres ships into berths at ports. GTTP will commence operations with ‘Green Hybrid Tugs’, powered by Green Hybrid Propulsion systems, and eventually move to non-fossil fuel solutions, like Ammonia, Hydrogen, and Methanol. The programme aims to convert at least 50 per cent of all the Tugs into Green Tugs by 2030 to significantly reduce emissions.
Sonowal also launched the country’s first Centre of Excellence of Green Port & Shipping (NCoEGPS), the shipping industry’s nodal entry, to make India the global hub for green shipbuilding by the decade’s end. The centre will undertake ten critical projects, like developing regulatory guidelines for using wind energy for marine applications and identifying the best-suited biofuel for blending with traditional marine fuels. It will also work to uncover a fuel cell technology for long-haul shipping and develop a statutory framework to transport hydrogen up to 700 bar pressure. In addition, the NCoEGPS will monitor and report low energy consumption ports on an offshore platform for utilising solar energy, production, storage and usage of green hydrogen.
