For those who were not aware of what was being set in motion, an MSC ship full of containers was in the process of unloading its goods this Friday morning. Not only was it the noise emitted by its engines that kept it running, burning fuel, but also the constant smoke it released into the air, giving off a dirty smell. The hundred guests, authorities, and businessmen, who attended the inauguration of the first facility to electrify the Port of Barcelona, located at the Hutchison Ports Best terminal, a pioneering infrastructure that has been on the Prat dock for more than ten years, in the southern part of the port, where most emissions are generated, had it behind them.
After an investment of almost five million euros, the new system, manufactured by PowerCon in Denmark, will allow container ships to turn off their engines when docking in port and plug into the electricity grid, with the capacity to supply up to 8 MW of power. To do this, a medium voltage network of 3,000 meters of cable has been deployed to the very edge of the dock, where three connection boxes have been installed to which two ships can be connected simultaneously if they need little power or one in the opposite case. The main task of these points is to transform the electricity that arrives from the electrical substation to the power required by each ship, taking into account that the voltage varies depending on whether it is a container ship, a cruise ship, or a ferry.
With the incorporation of this plug for ships, called Onshore Power Supply (OPS), the Hutchison Ports Best container terminal, immersed in an expansion process to reach 90 hectares, has become the first in the Mediterranean to incorporate this technology, which supplies 100% renewable electricity. It has been on the verge of leading the European port system, but the port of Hamburg has gotten ahead of it. The ports of Vancouver and Los Angeles have been the reference for Barcelona for this project, which has also been developed in some parts of China and Northern Europe.
The terminal, the first semi-automatic one Hutchison Ports had, expects to serve almost a hundred container ships ---92--- in the next two years. This figure represents 3% of the total number of ships received each year, between 1,400 and 1,500. After the pilot phase, from the third year onwards, the company expects to be able to expand annual connections, without specifying any figures. The problem here is knowing how many of the ships that dock at the terminal are prepared for this technology, a question that the Hong Kong group still does not know.
The budget for the works for the first connection point at the Best terminal has been financed by the Government with European funds. In the coming years, other port plugs will come, framed within a long-term project by the Port of Barcelona to electrify all its docks. With the different parts of the initiative already underway, either in the bidding or execution phase, a total of 200 million euros is expected to be invested to stop burning fuel and thus reduce the environmental impact of the infrastructure. By 2030, all cruise ship berths, Moll Prat, and ferry terminals are expected to be electrified. From 2030, electrification will be expanded to other areas, such as Moll de la Energia or the APM terminal.
The Port of Barcelona is executing a long-term project to electrify all its docks, in which it will invest 200 millionThe plan to electrify the docks will begin with pilot tests that will serve to determine the electrical demand of the ships, as well as to test the technology that will later be extended throughout the infrastructure. In addition to the Best terminal, at the end of the year, the second test will come, at the ferry terminal, the closest to the urban area.Here, only one connection point is planned to be installed, which will be able to serve a single ship of this type, which usually needs less power while stationary. The advantage of this second test is that ferries arrive and depart daily, a fact that will allow the system to be tested with different vessels and with more recurrence.
In addition to the two pilot tests, another fundamental element in the electrification plan is the new electrical substation on the Ronda Litoral by Red Eléctrica, with a capacity of 220 kV. In this infrastructure, located very close to the Moll Príncep d'Espanya, the port will be one of the main consumers, with a demand of 80 MW. An electrical substation will also have to be built in the port itself, which will be the one to connect with Red Eléctrica's and distribute energy throughout the infrastructure.