GRENDEL – Green and Efficient Danube Fleet

The long lifetime of inland navigation vessels, the high investment costs, the reduced reinvestment capacity of the Danube fleet operators, together with the lack of knowledge about the existing ecological technologies and the lack of public actions and incentives impose severe barriers for the adaptation of the Danube river fleet to the future European environmental policy objectives and inland navigation.

The GRENDEL project provided support to the operators of the Danube fleet and their public counterparts in the process of ecological and economic modernization of the sector and in the definition and implementation of the necessary transitional measures. Activities specially designed for this purpose have increased the awareness of operators and the Danube fleet sector on the impact of new regulations, advanced technologies that reduce atmospheric pollutants and energy consumption of inland vessels, as well as on the improvement of transport and logistics management processes that uses digitization.

Both the general objective and the specific objectives were achieved through: intensive international collaboration between public and private stakeholders in know-how transfer activities for the strategy and actions of the modernization of the Danube fleet; developing innovative technical ship concepts and improved transport and logistics management processes of fleet operators and disseminating them as best practices, aiming at strengthening the competitive position of inland navigation; development of the State aid scheme model and innovative financial instruments as a guideline for the Danube riparian countries with the aim of developing national state aid schemes for the modernization of the fleet according to the needs, requirements and administrative conditions specific to each country (taking into account the priorities for green technologies and potential investment volumes).

A report was also developed that provides a comprehensive picture of human resources skills in the inland waterways sector as well as training and training requirements and their adaptation to new technologies in the field. The aspects of fleet modernization addressed by GRENDEL were: the use of alternative and low-carbon fuels, the reduction of air pollutant emissions (CO 2, NO x, suspended dust), total energy consumption and transport and logistics management processes to ensure a better integration of Danube transport in logistics chains through new services (including river information services – RIS), the provision of digital data, as well as dedicated tools to improve the efficiency of fleet operations.

The project officially ended on November 30, 2020.