European container terminals operate in close proximity to densely populated urban areas, making their diesel dependency for their Container Handling Equipment (CHE) both a local air quality concern and a global climate challenge. Regulatory, social and competitive pressure is driving container terminals to transition from diesel-powered equipment toward initiatives that utilize green energy sources. However, decarbonizing CHE is not straightforward. The European terminal landscape is characterized by considerable heterogeneity in terminal environments, while the available initiatives are diverse and often not yet proven at commercial scale. Against this backdrop, the main research objective of this thesis is: To determine which decarbonization initiatives for container handling equipment can achieve economic competitiveness during their lifetime compared to their diesel counterparts while considering the complex and varied container terminal landscape of Europe and the equipments’ operational emissions. Three concepts are addressed in this research objective: decarbonization, innovation, and economic competitiveness. Decarbonization relates to the equipment’s reduction of Well-to-Wheel (WTW) CO2 emissions. The initiatives relate to the technologies capable of achieving this goal specifically for CHE. The third concept, economic competitiveness, refers to the ability of these initiatives to achieve lower lifetime costs compared to their diesel-powered counterparts. The thesis follows a sequential research design. Chapters 1 and 2 provide background information and identify the research gap of this thesis. The third chapter constructs a dataset of 111 European container terminals, drawn from the TEN-T core and comprehensive seaport network, and clusters them using a Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) cluster analysis based on their spatial characteristics. The analysis produces four size-based clusters, small, medium, large, and extra-large with fuzzy boundaries that reflect the gradual transitions between terminal types observed in practice. Geographically, the Hamburg–Le Havre range concentrates the biggest share of large and extra large terminals, while the Baltic and Mediterranean seas are characterized predominantly by small and medium terminals. No constant correlation was found between the cluster results and equipment type apart from the smaller cluster being more prone to use the Reach Stacker (RS) to handle their containers. This dataset and cluster structure serve as the empirical foundation for the remainder of the thesis. Chapter 4 identifies the energy sources and initiatives capable of supporting full, long-term decarbonization of CHE. Green electricity and green H2 are the only two energy sources capable of achieving zero WTW emissions in a terminal context. Four categories emerge as viable decarbonization pathways: battery electrification, grid electrification, H2 Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), and H2 Fuel Cell (FC). No single solution dominates; each involves trade-offs in costs, technological maturity, operational implications, infrastructure requirements, and safety considerations. Building on these two preparatory chapters, a Levelized Cost of Ownership (LCO) approach is developed to enable a consistent and comparable lifetime cost assessment across the full range of initiatives and terminal environments. The framework integrates Capital Expenditures (CAPEX), Operational Expenditures (OPEX), infrastructure costs, and a social cost component derived from the monetization of WTW CO2 emissions. To reflect the uncertainty in energy price trajectories and policy support, three uptake scenarios are embedded in the model: low, medium, and high. Each scenario reflects a different support and taxation regime for the green and grey energy sources. This framework is applied to 39 European container terminals selected from the four clusters. The analysis is also extended beyond the terminals and applied to 23 European countries for a more aggregated analysis. All terminal-specific results are evaluated under the high uptake scenario, representing the most favorable policy conditions for green CHE. Across vertical CHE, grid-connected RTGs consistently achieve the lowest LCO values in all examined terminals, benefiting from investment costs close to their diesel counterparts combined with substantially lower energy costs. Battery electrification of the SC, RS, and TTU, achieves competitive outcomes in the majority of terminals. Grey H2 ICE attains cost competitiveness in several environments where the price difference with diesel is limited, while green H2 initiatives struggle to attain cost competitiveness in many terminals. However, terminals located in Greece, Poland, and the United Kingdom can provide a favorable environment in which economic competitiveness of green H2 can be achieved. This is mainly due to the 2025 prices of green H2 already being relativly low. The lower green H2 price is benefited further by the high subsidy levels for green fuels, and high taxation levels for grey fuels. lastly, geographical location exerts a significant influence through energy prices and labor costs. Terminals in Eastern and Southern Europe generally benefit from lower labor costs, though high labor growth rates can erode this advantage over the equipment’s lifetime. The WTW emissions assessment confirms the findings in literature that grey H2 generated through steam methane reforming carries upstream CO2 emissions that, under the modeled conditions, exceed those of diesel. This result undermines the environmental advantage of grey H2. Grey electricity, which is a country’s grid electricity, also has upstream emissions, but are lower compared to diesel. Nevertheless, the lifetime emission savings for countries with high grid electricity generation emissions experience far lower emission savings compared to countries with cleaner grid electricity. In some cases, the difference in emission savings can even exceed 30%. Finally, the impact of social costs is studied, where the CO2 emissions are monetized, internalized, and added to the lifetime costs of each initiative. Grey energy sources like grey H2, grey electricity, and diesel become more expensive, making the green initiatives more attractive. Out of 354 initiatives assessed across the 29 terminals, 200 achieve cost competitiveness without internalizing social costs, rising to 227 when the social costs are included. At the European country level, grid electrification of yard cranes achieves cost competitiveness across all 23 countries and under all three uptake scenarios, making it the most universally applicable decarbonization pathway. Battery electrification demonstrates broad competitiveness under the high and medium uptake scenarios. For H2-powered initiatives, countries with competitive green H2 prices like Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Poland, Greece, and the United Kingdom, emerge as the most suitable candidates for this energy source. However, when policy support is reduced to the lowe uptake scenario, neither green nor grey H2 achieves widespread competitiveness, and battery electrification becomes the only broadly viable pathway. These findings imply that no single decarbonization initiative is universally optimal across the European terminal landscape, and that the appropriate pathway for any given terminal is determined by the intersection of its equipment configuration, geographical location, national energy market conditions, and the prevailing policy support regime. A uniform European decarbonization policy for CHE is unlikely to be effective; differentiated policy instruments calibrated to national and regional conditions are needed. The LCO framework developed in this thesis provides a replicable and flexible analytical tool to support these decisions, and the dataset of 111 European container terminals constitutes a publicly grounded empirical foundation for future comparative research in this field.
Decarbonizing European container terminals: An economic feasibility study
SCHMIDT, WOUTER ANTOON
2026-10-02
Abstract
European container terminals operate in close proximity to densely populated urban areas, making their diesel dependency for their Container Handling Equipment (CHE) both a local air quality concern and a global climate challenge. Regulatory, social and competitive pressure is driving container terminals to transition from diesel-powered equipment toward initiatives that utilize green energy sources. However, decarbonizing CHE is not straightforward. The European terminal landscape is characterized by considerable heterogeneity in terminal environments, while the available initiatives are diverse and often not yet proven at commercial scale. Against this backdrop, the main research objective of this thesis is: To determine which decarbonization initiatives for container handling equipment can achieve economic competitiveness during their lifetime compared to their diesel counterparts while considering the complex and varied container terminal landscape of Europe and the equipments’ operational emissions. Three concepts are addressed in this research objective: decarbonization, innovation, and economic competitiveness. Decarbonization relates to the equipment’s reduction of Well-to-Wheel (WTW) CO2 emissions. The initiatives relate to the technologies capable of achieving this goal specifically for CHE. The third concept, economic competitiveness, refers to the ability of these initiatives to achieve lower lifetime costs compared to their diesel-powered counterparts. The thesis follows a sequential research design. Chapters 1 and 2 provide background information and identify the research gap of this thesis. The third chapter constructs a dataset of 111 European container terminals, drawn from the TEN-T core and comprehensive seaport network, and clusters them using a Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) cluster analysis based on their spatial characteristics. The analysis produces four size-based clusters, small, medium, large, and extra-large with fuzzy boundaries that reflect the gradual transitions between terminal types observed in practice. Geographically, the Hamburg–Le Havre range concentrates the biggest share of large and extra large terminals, while the Baltic and Mediterranean seas are characterized predominantly by small and medium terminals. No constant correlation was found between the cluster results and equipment type apart from the smaller cluster being more prone to use the Reach Stacker (RS) to handle their containers. This dataset and cluster structure serve as the empirical foundation for the remainder of the thesis. Chapter 4 identifies the energy sources and initiatives capable of supporting full, long-term decarbonization of CHE. Green electricity and green H2 are the only two energy sources capable of achieving zero WTW emissions in a terminal context. Four categories emerge as viable decarbonization pathways: battery electrification, grid electrification, H2 Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), and H2 Fuel Cell (FC). No single solution dominates; each involves trade-offs in costs, technological maturity, operational implications, infrastructure requirements, and safety considerations. Building on these two preparatory chapters, a Levelized Cost of Ownership (LCO) approach is developed to enable a consistent and comparable lifetime cost assessment across the full range of initiatives and terminal environments. The framework integrates Capital Expenditures (CAPEX), Operational Expenditures (OPEX), infrastructure costs, and a social cost component derived from the monetization of WTW CO2 emissions. To reflect the uncertainty in energy price trajectories and policy support, three uptake scenarios are embedded in the model: low, medium, and high. Each scenario reflects a different support and taxation regime for the green and grey energy sources. This framework is applied to 39 European container terminals selected from the four clusters. The analysis is also extended beyond the terminals and applied to 23 European countries for a more aggregated analysis. All terminal-specific results are evaluated under the high uptake scenario, representing the most favorable policy conditions for green CHE. Across vertical CHE, grid-connected RTGs consistently achieve the lowest LCO values in all examined terminals, benefiting from investment costs close to their diesel counterparts combined with substantially lower energy costs. Battery electrification of the SC, RS, and TTU, achieves competitive outcomes in the majority of terminals. Grey H2 ICE attains cost competitiveness in several environments where the price difference with diesel is limited, while green H2 initiatives struggle to attain cost competitiveness in many terminals. However, terminals located in Greece, Poland, and the United Kingdom can provide a favorable environment in which economic competitiveness of green H2 can be achieved. This is mainly due to the 2025 prices of green H2 already being relativly low. The lower green H2 price is benefited further by the high subsidy levels for green fuels, and high taxation levels for grey fuels. lastly, geographical location exerts a significant influence through energy prices and labor costs. Terminals in Eastern and Southern Europe generally benefit from lower labor costs, though high labor growth rates can erode this advantage over the equipment’s lifetime. The WTW emissions assessment confirms the findings in literature that grey H2 generated through steam methane reforming carries upstream CO2 emissions that, under the modeled conditions, exceed those of diesel. This result undermines the environmental advantage of grey H2. Grey electricity, which is a country’s grid electricity, also has upstream emissions, but are lower compared to diesel. Nevertheless, the lifetime emission savings for countries with high grid electricity generation emissions experience far lower emission savings compared to countries with cleaner grid electricity. In some cases, the difference in emission savings can even exceed 30%. Finally, the impact of social costs is studied, where the CO2 emissions are monetized, internalized, and added to the lifetime costs of each initiative. Grey energy sources like grey H2, grey electricity, and diesel become more expensive, making the green initiatives more attractive. Out of 354 initiatives assessed across the 29 terminals, 200 achieve cost competitiveness without internalizing social costs, rising to 227 when the social costs are included. At the European country level, grid electrification of yard cranes achieves cost competitiveness across all 23 countries and under all three uptake scenarios, making it the most universally applicable decarbonization pathway. Battery electrification demonstrates broad competitiveness under the high and medium uptake scenarios. For H2-powered initiatives, countries with competitive green H2 prices like Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Poland, Greece, and the United Kingdom, emerge as the most suitable candidates for this energy source. However, when policy support is reduced to the lowe uptake scenario, neither green nor grey H2 achieves widespread competitiveness, and battery electrification becomes the only broadly viable pathway. These findings imply that no single decarbonization initiative is universally optimal across the European terminal landscape, and that the appropriate pathway for any given terminal is determined by the intersection of its equipment configuration, geographical location, national energy market conditions, and the prevailing policy support regime. A uniform European decarbonization policy for CHE is unlikely to be effective; differentiated policy instruments calibrated to national and regional conditions are needed. The LCO framework developed in this thesis provides a replicable and flexible analytical tool to support these decisions, and the dataset of 111 European container terminals constitutes a publicly grounded empirical foundation for future comparative research in this field.
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