The Montreal Port Authority (MPA) has reached an important milestone in its efforts to become carbon neutral.

The port’s events and cruise terminal — known as the Grand Quay — is now 100 per cent powered by renewable energy, specifically renewable natural gas (RNG).

“The reasons to do that was to meet the expectations of our events customers, who are very attentive to the environmental footprints of all of their actions,” Mélanie Nadeau, vice-president, public affairs and community relations at MPA, told Sustainable Biz Canada.

“It was also the vision of the port to make the Grand Quay as green as possible.”

RNG is natural gas produced from a byproduct of organic waste — biogas — and its implementation replaced the old standard of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

“For the RNG project, it was not that complicated because Énergir offers regular LNG or renewable natural gas. As long as you’re connected with the Énergir network, you just have to make the choice,” Nadeau said.

The energy provider serves about 535,000 customers in Quebec and the northern U.S.

The decision to switch to RNG

While it was the correct environmental decision, the choice to make the switch to another form of power was not entered into lightly, according to Nadeau.

“It’s cheaper to use the regular LNG but we made the financial decision to reduce our carbon footprint.”

The switch for the Grand Quay is part of the MPA’s ultimate goal of carbon neutrality by 2035. The overhaul began in 2015 and as of Jan. 1, the change was completed.

In addition, other green efforts have been undertaken at the Grand Quay, Nadeau said. It offers shore power, produced by RNG, to enable cruise ships to plug-in while docked and turn off fossil-fuel burning engines.

A 25,000-volt energy hub was installed that offers hookups for 40 ships, she said.

While benefits to the environment from the shore power are obvious, the installation has also produced tangible savings for the authority.

“We are in a good place because just with the shore power used by wintering ships or cruise ships, we are saving 2,000 tonnes of GHG (greenhouse gases) a year,” Nadeau said.

When this was first implemented, not many ports or cruise ships were ready to hook up electrically.

“We decided in 2017 to put in place — it cost us a few million dollars — the shore power so the electricity at port is available for the cruise ships in winter. At that time, there was not a lot of cruise ships that had the capability so it was like chicken and egg. We always wanted to be at the forefront as much as we can so we can be ready when the shipping lines, the cruise lines, decided to take the green path,” Nadeau said.

MPA takes leadership role on the path to carbon neutrality

Other areas of improvement include installing a green roof that houses 24,000 plants and lowering the dock to provide closer access to the waterfront.

“We decided to lower the end of the dock from a normal four or five metres from the water to one metre from the water so that the general public could go there and be closer to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It’s a big space,” Nadeau added.

By implementing these measures, it has allowed the MPA to take a leadership role.

“A port has a responsibility to be a catalyst because we are more than just a port, we are more than just maritime activities or infrastructure," she said. "We are an intermodal platform, so we have the responsibility and we want to be at the heart of the decarbonization of the whole maritime industry, because the industry is committed to carbon neutrality by 2050."

“We truly believe we have a responsibility to offer services that are greener and greener so we can contribute to the decarbonization of the whole industry.”

Most of the vehicles and equipment at the port are now electric or hybrid, according to Nadeau, which furthers the organization’s green goals.

Forging ahead on biodiversity, technology

MPA is also taking positive steps to improve the local environment.

“We work on biodiversity. We are committed to protect 30 per cent of the territory under the management of the Montreal Port Authority. We also planted 3,000 trees in the past few years and we want to plant 3,000 more by 2027 to green our operations,” Nadeau said.

Like many other industries, the MPA is also deploying an AI tool to reduce pollution.

“We offer what we call the trucking portal. It’s a web application for truckers. They can use it to plan their visit to the port. It’s a predictive application so they can note for example, ‘At what time is it better for me tomorrow?’ so they can go when there is less traffic and they can know, ‘I won’t get stuck in traffic.’ This helps us to remove the GHG emissions from the trucks.”

It’s expected the Grand Quay project will project a positive statement to the industry, Nadeau said.

“We want to send the message that the Port of Montreal is one of the greener ports that they can use. We want to send the message to our clients and the maritime industry that we are ready to welcome their path to transition to a greener way of doing business.

"We want to make carbon neutrality possible for the whole maritime industry.”