Germany’s coastal states call for help to transform ports into offshore and hydrogen hubs

German coastal states want hundreds of millions of euros from the federal government to transform their ports into energy hubs for liquefied natural gas, hydrogen, and offshore wind, reports business daily Handelsblatt. "Now is the time to master the challenges together. But we will only succeed if we can also trigger the necessary investments," Lower Saxony's economy minister Olaf Lies (SPD) told the newspaper. Hamburg's senator for economic affairs, Melanie Leonhard (SPD), said the coastal states cannot afford the necessary investments alone. The states want to use the upcoming National Maritime Conference in Bremen next week to demand 400 million euros from the government to handle the transformation.

The importance of ports as energy hubs grew rapidly as a result of the energy crisis and the war in Ukraine, as the government was forced to replace Russian pipeline gas partly with LNG imports which enter the country via floating terminals. Germany also has ambitious plans to expand its offshore wind capacity and establish an infrastructure for the import of green hydrogen.