The Port of Barcelona continues to advance in its plan to electrify the docks and reduce CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030. The Port Authority of Barcelona (APB) has put out to tender the pilot project to supply electricity to ships operating at the Barcelona Ferry Terminal. For an amount of more than five million euros, the tender includes the drafting and execution of the project, as well as the service to connect the ferries to the electricity grid and the maintenance of the installation.
The ferry terminal will be one of the first areas of the infrastructure where this new way of powering ships when they dock in the port will be tested. Grimaldi, an Italian ferry company, signed an agreement with the APB in February to connect its ships to the system that has just been put out to tender.
The new system will also be tested in the southern area of the port, at the BEST terminal, a project that was tendered at the beginning of this year. The two pilots will serve to install the first electricity supply points for vessels, whether ferries or container ships, and analyze how the infrastructure responds.
The port will invest more than 110 million euros in the electrification of the docks, a long-term project that began to be considered at the beginning of 2020 and will be visible next year, when the first ships plug into the infrastructure, once the tenders are resolved. Some 90 million euros will be allocated to installing connection points on the different docks that allow vessels to connect to the electricity grid, while 20 million euros will go to deploying the necessary cabling to bring electricity to the ships. Own funds will be used to cover the investment, although the option of receiving European funds to finance the project is not ruled out.
The plan foresees having all cruise ship berths, the Prat Dock and the ferry terminals electrified in the next eight years. From 2030, electrification will be expanded to other areas, such as the Energia Dock or the APM terminal.
In addition to the pilot tests at the BEST terminal and the ferry terminal, another fundamental element in the electrification plan for the docks is the construction of a new electrical substation on the Ronda Litoral by Red Eléctrica, where the port will have to connect to power the ships. Last March, the company confirmed the materialization of this substation, which will have a capacity of 220 kV and will be located very close to the Príncep d'Espanya Dock.