Digital Catapult has published a case study on our work with Larne Harbour: "Helix8 and Larne Harbour join forces to design affordable digital twin for regional ports".

The project was delivered through the Digital Twin Adoption Accelerator, a programme run by Digital Catapult and the UK Digital Twin Centre that pairs innovative technology companies with real operational challenges. Ours was a challenge every UK port now faces: decarbonisation targets without the measurement infrastructure to act on them.

What we built

Working with the Port of Larne team, we deployed a live, operational digital twin of the working port:

• A real-time 3D model of the port, built from photogrammetry and rendered in the browser, with buildings coloured by live energy consumption
• A low-power LoRaWAN sensor network measuring electricity use across the site
• Environmental sensors and AI-enabled cameras monitoring vehicle activity
• A cloud-based data pipeline feeding the interactive visualisation
• A Marginal Abatement Cost Curve (MACC) engine, turning measured emissions into a ranked list of decarbonisation investments

What it delivered

The headline outcome is a verified emissions baseline of 47 tonnes CO₂-equivalent (annualised, measured May 2026), aligned to the GHG Protocol and ISO 14064-1 — produced at a fraction of the cost of the digital twins deployed at major international ports.

As our CEO John Harrison puts it in the case study:

"Every UK port is being asked to decarbonise, but you can't reduce what you can't measure."

"We finished the programme with something the sector has been missing: proof that a small port can have auditor-grade emissions measurement and a live investment decision tool at a cost the sector can actually bear."

John Kerr, Port Facilities and Maintenance Manager at the Port of Larne, credits the combination of disciplined delivery and the market support provided by Digital Catapult. Dr Rebecca Lutton, Head of Technology Adoption at Digital Catapult, describes the project as a demonstration of exactly what the Digital Twin Adoption Accelerator was designed to achieve — bringing innovative technology together with a real operational challenge.

Why it matters for regional ports and estates

Most digital twin case studies come from major international ports with budgets to match. This one is different: it shows a regional port getting continuous energy visibility, an auditable emissions baseline, and a live tool for prioritising capital spend — without a data centre, without disrupting operations, and at a cost a regional operator can actually justify.

The same stack — LoRaWAN sensing, AWS serverless pipelines, and CesiumJS geospatial twins — is what we deploy for ports, estates, and industrial sites across the UK and Ireland. If your site has a decarbonisation target and no measured baseline behind it, talk to us.

You can read the full case study on the Digital Catapult website, and explore the twin itself on our Larne Harbour case study page.

Photography: Digital Catapult / Alex McKnight.