Ports Move To Offer Cold Ironing For Cruise Vessels
Tourist cruise vessels resemble floating cities, with all the attendant power demands of onboard systems for lighting, air conditioning, and heating. While at sea, those power demands are met by a cruise ship's diesel generators. Those generators, however, can produce significant amounts of soot, greenhouse gases, and other emissions routinely found in diesel exhaust. The emissions can be of particular concern while a cruise vessel is docked in port, where meeting the vessel's energy requirements means local air quality can suffer as the generators remain in operation while the ship is otherwise idled, essentially operating as a shore-side hotel.
One strategy being adopted at U.S. ports and abroad is that of "cold ironing," or connecting a vessel's onboard electrical system to shore power. The practice is underway on the west coast at the Port of Seattle and, most recently, San Francisco. Cruise terminals in Southern California (Los Angeles and San Diego), Florida and New York likewise have plans to implement cold ironing at their cruise ship terminals, and indeed the state of California has imposed regulations mandating cold ironing of covered vessels over the next few years.
The benefits of cold ironing include not only improved air quality in the port environment and adjacent population areas, but also reduced energy consumption as vessels tap into energy produced more efficiently by large-scale power facilities. Costs can be higher, however, as diesel continues to offer cheap energy in relation to onshore power. In addition, cruise companies incur costs in retrofitting ships to be compatible with on-shore electricity.
In San Francisco's case, though, port authorities priced the on-shore power to be less expensive than typical costs for operating onboard power systems on diesel, thereby creating a financial incentive for cruise operators to take advantage of the more attractive power option. The San Francisco shoreside power also results in zero air emissions because the energy for idled cruise ships is supplied by hydroelectric power. San Francisco comes out ahead economically in light of the tourist dollars spent in the locale while cruise vessels remain in port.
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