NEEDS stands for NEw sustainablE fuel Deployment Scenarios for the European waterborne community. The main objective of NEEDS is to provide a model and methodology to define and assess the most efficient strategies to be deployed for successfully reaching the European target of 90% GHG reduction for waterborne activities by 2050, for selected regions.

The project, financed by the European Commission, has the following members:

	Waterborne Technology Platform V.Z.W. De Meeussquare 35 1000 Brussels Belgium This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
	SEA Europe asbl Rue de la Loi 67 (4th floor) 1000 Brussels Belgium This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

BALance Technology Consulting GmbH. Contrescarpe 33 28203 Bremen Germany This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

CERTH/ HELLENIC INSTITUTE of TRANSPORT 6th Km Harilaou Thermi, Thermi, Thessaloniki, Makedonia, P.C. 57001, Hellas Greece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Sintef Pb. 124 Blindern 0314 Oslo Norway This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

	Marin 2, Haagsteeg 6708 PM Wageningen The Netherlands This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
	EICB Scheepmakerij 320 / 2de verdieping 3331 MC Zwijndrecht The Netherlands This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

A dynamic techno-economic model developed in this project supports such an objective. It can allow policy makers, regional and national authorities, ship and fleet owners, as well as any other interested public or private entity to define the specificity of a given maritime or inland waterways region, vary selected governing parameters and launch scenarios that can illustrate the dynamic of changes over time. The model includes the following main generic elements, forming a complete waterborne transport eco-system for a (to be defined) region:

• Energy (existing energy supply and potential future alternative sustainable energy carriers)
• Harbour infrastructure (energy bunkering, charging or swapping and shipping logistics);
• Waterborne transport (ships, trade routes and transport capacity).
• Environmental conditions thought hindcast data (current, water depth, waves and wind)

In order to illustrate the possibilities of such model, 2 regions were selected for which results are so far made publicly available in the Dashboard section of this portal. The Rhine region was covered as well as the Greek inter-island network.

For each region, a dedicated analysis and representation of the fleet and infrastructure was realised, including governing parameters and their possible inter-dependency, as well as current ships performance and alternative ships or power system for refit strategies.

The large amount of variables and the possibility to change them in time allows for an almost infinite number of scenarios. The scenario’s presented on this portal were prepared by the project members, but can still be developed further and adapted to new insights or ideas of scenarios.

The current project ends in October 2023 but preparations to create a user-group with interested parties and keep developing NEEDS are underway.