Plug into shoreside power at Seawork

In harbour cities, ship pollution is a major source of urban pollutant. Shore power ensures that ships can be plugged in to the grid at berth switching off their own engines to cut emissions and reduce noise ensuring a cleaner, greener environment. Schneider Electric’s ShoreBoX technology aims to take this concept and move it to the next level.

ShoreBoX is an all in one integrated solution. It’s adaptable to any port context and Schneider Electric says it’s easy to install and use. Best of all it’s mobile and modular – great for ports with limited space, and for all sizes of vessels.

The ShoreBoX solution uses a Static Grid Frequency Conversion system and can be installed and used for cruisers, containerships, tankers and smaller commercial vessels such as ferries and tugs, in fact any vessel which needs to use power while at berth.

At one of Schneider Electric’s main R&D facilities in Grenoble, the 3 MVA ShoreBoX prototype – which is approximately the size of a container in order to be shipped easily by road – has been tested thoroughly with a medium voltage supply of 6.6KV which simulates a real life port context.

Traditional shore side systems were designed in line with the power of the ship, but this risked power being wasted if energy was found to be surplus to requirements. ShoreBoX, however, can be sized to requirements – buy what you need now and you can buy more later.

Seawork

Schneider Electric doesn’t just supply shore side systems, it has the capability to convert ships for shore power.

To this end, the company will be attending the Seawork Exhibition (10 to 12 June 2014, ABP Southampton) for the first time this year to raise awareness of ShoreBox.

Peter Selway of Schneider Electric UK said: “We’re using Seawork to raise awareness, it wouldn’t be our usual choice of exhibition, but we’re looking to target offshore vessels and the renewable market.”

At Seawork (Stand B29), Schneider will have a joint stand with its partner Cavotec, which produces the plugs for the ShoreBoX system.

Shore side power is already recognised as an important way forward to save costs and emissions for the shipping industry. There is a worldwide standard for shore power Standard EC/ISO/IEEE 80005-1 High-voltage Shore Connection (HVSC).

And the demand is there also. The Port of Los Angeles uses shore side power helped by the introduction of the new OGV Fuel Regulation and Northern American Emission Control Area (ECA) requirements in January. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) says that 80% of the power used by berthed ships will have to come from shore side electricity by 2020.

Shore side power is available in 97 berths worldwide and so far, Schneider Electric provides just under half with shore side power systems. The company also has a strong relationship with Viking Line in Helsinki Finland, where it has fitted shore side power systems.

But the retrofit side of the business is more of a work in progress. The company has so far only equipped one Stena Line ship in Gothenburg, so there is a lot of scope left to develop that side of the business.The trouble is that there are plenty of issues to tackle before shore side power can be adopted on a much more global scale.

For example, although it’s quite clear what ports need to do to have this shore side power, some older ships may not have been built with the facility to attach to a shore connection.

Frequency conversion is also a key consideration, particularly as the US uses a 60Hz grid, while the EU uses a 50hz grid. Most ships are 60Hz so a conversion process needs to be put in place in European ports by way of a Static Grid Frequency Conversion system.

But the European Directive on the Deployment of Alternative Fuel Infrastructures, which will affect all ports in Europe, is expected to be validated in April 2014, which should help with this.

Unless regulation is in place, it’s the same old chicken and egg story – ports are waiting for shipping demands and ships are waiting for port infrastructure to be in place before adopting and using new technology.

Looking ahead, international standards are in place and the technology is there for the uptake, so the industry looks positive. It is now just up to the ports and ships to decide who implements the shore connection first.