Shore Power

Flexible, effecient, and cost-effective shore power that allows ships at berth to plug into the electrical grid and turn off their auxiliary diesel engines.

Also known as Onshore Power Supply (OPS), cold ironing, shore-to-ship power and shore-side electricity to name a few terms, PowerCon pioneered the shore power industry with a more innovative, modular approach to constructing shore power systems. By integrating our main components into standard shipping containers, we pioneered the “building block” approach which allows us to put together the most suitable solution for any port.

The benefits of a containerized shore power system are many. Most importantly, the containers allow us to pre-manufacture, pre-assemble, and pre-test our solutions in our factory, instead of onsite. Here, the containerized design also ensures easy and fast installation.

PowerCon’s industry independence allows us to use the latest and greatest technologies and materials in constructing our shore power solutions, whereby you also avoid a “closed box” solution or a proprietary technology that will limit your future adaptability and scalability.

We build our systems according to the international standard for shore power (IEC/IEEE/ISO 80005) and are also a member of the standard committee.

PowerCon supplies both high and low voltage shore power solutions and covers all vessel types, from the largest cruise ships to container ships to smaller fishing vessels and ferries as seen from some of our main references below.

Although occasionally functioning as a sub-contractor of the shore power systems, PowerCon is often chosen as a turn-key supplier, or prime contractor, undertaking the complete scope of a shore power project and implementing an end-to-end solution. These additional tasks can include grid connection upgrades, civil works, cabling, switching stations, connection boxes, cable management solution (CMS) as well as all related services like maintenance, daily operations, etc. For some of those tasks, PowerCon works with a number of trusted sub-suppliers.

This is especially true for the cable management solution (CMS) which is the solution on the berth that feeds the cables from the berth to the ship. Although PowerCon has its own designs, we have also worked with several different companies that specialize in CMS solutions, offering variable degrees of flexibility and price points. Some of them are listed below.

Over the recent years, PowerCon has started to supply shore power solutions for container terminals. Creating a new project named “PowerFlex”, PowerCon set out to design and implement low-cost and flexible shore power supply for containerships and include onboard battery charging into the system design.

Background
Containerships rely on the highly pollutant marine fuel to operate, contributing to 50-60% of all ship emissions. Onshore power supply (OPS) is the delivery of shore side electrical power to a ship at berth so its main and auxiliary engines can be turned off. If the electricity comes from renewables, OPS is a local mitigation measure that eliminates all CO2, air pollutants, noise, and vibration at the port terminal. However, with the additional possibility to charge onboard batteries, OPS can also have a significant global CO2 mitigation potential.

Pushing the boundaries
PowerCon has in recent years been a part of the successful implementation of various OPS systems for the cruise ships, adding significant savings to cruise ports. This made it obvious to offer the same savings to the containership segment and expand the system capabilities to charge onboard batteries too – named OPS-Charger. Therefore, the main objective of this project was to advance the technological and market readiness of a competitive OPS solution to provide electricity to containerships when at berth to supply their consumers and charge onboard batteries. For 36 months, we matured, tested, and demonstrated OPS-Charger in a real case scenarios.

Outcome
The main outcome of the project was a market ready solution to offer for the first time a cost-competitive and flexible OPS solution for containership ports around the world, ensuring a reasonable payback period. The market adoption of our solution is expected to contribute to:

1) reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, noise, and vibration from containerships at berth and at sea, thereby contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals 3, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14.
2) the circular economy.
3) the creation of high-value blue economy jobs.

Overall, the ambition of this project was to significantly impact the blue economy areas of “New facilities that support the diversification or energy efficiency of ports” and “Cleaner shipping”.
The project was supported by a BlueInvest grant from the European Union

Market adoption
A critical milestone was reached in 2021 when the Port of Kristiansand in Norway became the first adopter of this solution that integrates shore power into the broader picture of port electrification with its charging capability. More ports have since followed, and PowerCon sees an increased interest for shore power from container terminals around the world.