Electrifying Skagerrak's coasts together

go:LEIF is a cross-border collaboration for green transition along coasts through electrification, smart technology and sustainable business.

The electric boat charging project go:LEIF aims to be part of the green transition through electrification, smart technology and sustainable business models. This requires electric boats, the possibility of boat charging in guest harbors and home ports, but also that you as a consumer choose a boat that is silent and emission-free.

Sweden and Norway together have more than one million fossil-fueled recreational boats. Their carbon dioxide emissions are estimated at over 400 000 tons per year. In addition to the climate impact, there are emissions of harmful substances to the marine environment, through exhaust gases from engines and spills when handling fuels, oils and chemicals.

The electrification of recreational boats solves many of these problems but of course has its challenges. For the transition to take off, the market needs to offer innovative and competitive products, such as electric boats and electric powertrains to convert existing boats. A charging infrastructure needs to be built so that we can go boating along the coasts or make the day trips we want and, not least, we need interest, knowledge and courage from us consumers to take the step to tomorrow's boating.

A key factor in the transition to greener boating is the development of a functioning charging infrastructure. Here the situation is a bit like the chicken and the egg. It is difficult as a consumer to invest in an electric boat if you cannot charge and it is difficult as a port operator to justify investments in boat charging if there are no boats.

To move forward, we need to work together! Information, collaboration, knowledge building and experience sharing are incredibly important!

Go:LEIF will work on this:

• - Increase interest and expertise in electric boats and electric boat charging among ports, municipalities and boating enthusiasts.
• - Provide charging infrastructure test beds for testing and demo and business collaboration.
• - Strengthen technology development and the region's business community in relevant areas.
• - Research studies on recreational boat use for knowledge building important for the development of electric boats and charging infrastructure.
• - Business models for charging, impact on electricity grids and potential to combine boat charging with renewable energy production.

The project aims to enable charging points along the coast from Gothenburg to Agder in Norway, as well as create a digital home, elbat.org, for consumer info and associated charging map. The charging map inventories and shows the places where boats can be charged. The project will also hold knowledge-enhancing workshops, form a regional business network and hold two Nordic conferences.

go:LEIF is run by twelve Swedish and Norwegian public project partners along the coasts of Skagerrak. The project involves Swedish and Norwegian marinas, municipal associations/county municipalities, business offices, technical experts and researchers.

Projektet har fokus på kunskapsuppbyggnad, är neutralt och utan kommersiella intressen. Projektet drivs med stöd från EU och lokalt från Västra Götalandsregionen.

Läs mer om go:LEIF projektet hos Innovatum Science Park.