Innovations in a container terminal area and electrical power distribution for the service continuity

Abstract

The economic efficiency in competitive container terminals promotes continuous innovations to reduce the operating costs based on the reduction of processes operating time by automated means, on the service continuity enhancement and on energy saving techniques. The increasing container number moved makes necessary the compensation of high values of energy absorbed from the utility by promoting renewable energy sources and an innovative approach of a coordinated management of the global energy absorption of all the port tenants (microgrid management). The paper deals with the relevance of system integrity aspects in the design phase and in its following management. Electrical distribution architecture, integrated at least by two independent sources from the utility company, has a vital impact on system availability throughout its lifecycle. Thanks to a flexible power distribution system assisted by a prompt reaction of a qualified maintenance staff, system critical loads could be re-energized in emergency condition such as faults, maintenance operations and interruption of one energy supply from the utility company. The paper used as reference the Port of Long Beach for the data reported as example

Design, Sizing, and Energy Management of Microgrids in Harbor Areas: A Review

“…Moreover, most countries which these articles come from correspond to those directly involved by harbor evolution, as they are the location of the major harbors of the world: USA, Italy, China, Denmark, Germany, Taiwan, Finland, Greece, Spain, etc. Some harbors located in these countries have been used as application cases for research articles, for example: Long Beach (USA) [27,28], Houston (USA) [29], Copenhagen (Denmark) [30], Taiwan [31], Sardinia (Italy) [32]. These publications are reviewed in Sections 3 and 4.…”

“…To determine the relevant sizing of microgrid elements, it is necessary to know the power demand of the loads that must be supplied by the sources, and the storage solutions. For example, the existing publications dealing with sizing aspects have considered many kinds of load profiles for the sizing of a harbor microgrid: vessel cold-ironing [20,30,33], container terminals [27,29,38], harbor cranes [28,48], or even several harbors [34]. Different evaluation criteria are used for the sizing of harbor microgrids:…”

“…The harbor changes required to meet the needs of the forthcoming years: increasing maritime exchanges and maritime traffic, extension of harbor areas, development of electrical transport (vehicles, boats), etc. [27,32,37]. The existing harbor grids are often undersized to be able to meet the future energetic needs.…”

“…Reliability: Sizing of the microgrid must allow critical loads to be supplied, for example reefer containers or quay cranes for which a power supply failure can lead to serious technical and financial consequences. To ensure service continuity, a redundancy can be integrated into the design of the microgrid, for example by adding some interconnections between several parts of the microgrid [27] or between several harbors [34]. This is called a meshed network topology.…”

“…However, it implies an adapted moving system, and a sufficient number of the same batteries in the harbor. The electrical energy used to charge the vessel's batteries and for cold-ironing can be generated by renewable energy sources (wind turbines and solar photovoltaic panels) [33,81] or supplied by the main grid [27]. Due to their embedded power sources (auxiliary engines and storage solutions), the vessels can provide ancillary services to the main grid during berthing, such as frequency and voltage regulation, power quality, load levelling, etc.…”