Navigating to Net Zero: Energy Storage for Ports

All industrial and commercial facilities have an agreed maximum import capacity (MIC) with their energy provider. Sometimes also known as a kVA allowance, this is the limit on how much power the site can draw down from the grid. Breaching MIC results in significant surcharges.

This poses problems for ports planning to deploy EV charging stations at scale, in order to support electric vehicles, electric MHE, and electric leisure boats – if too many EVs are plugged in at once, the site could go over its kVA allowance.

BESS is a proven way to provide the power needed while avoiding MIC surcharges. The BESS acts as a reservoir, drawing down energy during quiet periods and providing it during times of peak demand.

Many ports are installing solar PV arrays to generate as much of their own clean energy as possible. However, ports are 24-hour operations, and clearly solar does not provide power at night.

A BESS solves this issue as it can store surplus solar energy generated during the day and provide it during hours of darkness. In this way, ports can “oversize” their solar capacity to power more night-time operations with renewable electricity.

Even without factoring in ship-to-shore provision, some ports are already unable to access more power from the grid to support other electrification goals. Where a new substation is simply not a viable option, BESS can provide a more affordable alternative.

A survey by the British Port Association published in 2020 found that the two biggest barriers to deploying ship-to-shore facilities were lack of capacity in the local transmission network and the high capital outlay required to remedy it:

“The costs of potentially having to upgrade local energy networks were cited by most people we spoke to and respondents to our survey identified it as the biggest barrier. The second highest barrier identified was lack of capacity in the local energy network, which is related to the capital costs barrier.

“Large vessels will require in the order of 5MW per connection which could be a quarter or half the typical demand for a small to medium port. This connection will inevitably put stress on local energy networks, which requires either significant capital expenditure on reinforcement to remedy, or energy storage.”

In the same way that BESS can support EV charging, it can also be deployed at scale to bridge the “power gap” for ship-to-shore.