On April 20th, the MAGPIE webinar, “Greening Maritime/IWT Demonstrations,” provided an overview of recent progress in Work Package 5, dedicated to waterborne transport.
The session opened with an introduction by Reyer Will on the project’s status in its final year and the role of water transport within it. The presentations then covered the following topics:
• Ammonia bunkering: Cees Boon presented the work around the bunkering pilot in relation to the IAPH safety framework. The resulting, detailed ship-to-ship procedures and preparation phases now enable safe on-site operations, including configurations at terminal containers. It also addresses scaling to larger volumes, barge applicability, and incident response, including vulnerable objects and required safety equipment.
• Autonomous e-barge and transhipment: Thierry Verduijn shared findings on the feasibility and safety of automated, waterborne, intra-port transport. Building on model-scale tests, such as the use of a robotic gripper for mooring, Thierry’s team work also resulted in real-world demonstrations, such as the October 2025 “When Ships Talk” event, when an intention-sharing trial complemented standard VHF communication with digital exchange of calculated course data, supported by a track pilot (automatic navigation system).
• Green energy container systems: Rianne de Vries presented swappable, containerised energy solutions for zero-emission inland shipping, with hybrid configurations, and work on battery management systems and the data to support its implementation.
• Offshore charging tower: Evert Han Hurnink explained the transition from an offshore charging buoy to a Charging Crane concept, and its commercial viability.
Heartfelt thanks to EICB and NMT for organizing, and to all attendees for participating. See you in June for our Webinar dedicated to the digital tools developed within the project!
Watch the full webinar below:
