A $1 million state grant will help the Port of Galveston develop an onshore pilot microgrid to provide clean, portable power to docked ships and guide academics in better understanding on-site electrification benefits in the future. Contact online >>
A $1 million state grant will help the Port of Galveston develop an onshore pilot microgrid to provide clean, portable power to docked ships and guide academics in better understanding on-site electrification benefits in the future.
Galveston Wharves, the leadership board for the port, announced it was awarded the $1 million grant by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). The partnership with Texas A&M University will focus on reducing emissions from cargo shipping operations.
The pilot program will build an electricity microgrid to offer a power alternative to using the docked ship''s diesel-fueled auxiliary engines. Work will begin next year with completion expected by 2025.
"Improving air quality is one of our top environmental goals as a Green Marine-certified port," Rodger Rees, port director and CEO of Galveston Wharves, said in a statement. "This grant will boost our objective to offer clean shore power to cargo ships calling at the Port of Galveston."
Green Marine, an environmental certification program focused on decarbonizing North America''s maritime industry, assisted Galveston Wharves in studying ways to improve the port''s emissions profile.
The Galveston and Texas A&M pilot project team will study the microgrid''s feasibility, environmental impact and operational data such as energy consumption and power production efficiency. The grant was awarded funds from TCEQ''s Texas Emissions Reduction Plan.
"The Galveston Campus is adjacent to the Port of Galveston, which employs many of our graduates. This partnership is in perfect alignment with our mission to educate, innovate and create real industry solutions," said Col. Michael E. Fossum, Vice President of Texas A&M University, Chief Operating Officer of the Galveston Campus and Superintendent for the Texas A&M Maritime Academy.
Most of the Texas'' power grid is overseen by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT. State leaders and grid officials increasingly have been touting the integration of distributed energy resources such as microgrids to help diversify and provide alternatives to utility-scale power generation resources in the event of extreme events such as the recent summer peak records and Winter Storm Uri in 2021.
These projects are also touted for helping avoid future projected transmission and distribution system capital investment costs. Nationwide, especially at ports such as those on the west coast in Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland and San Diego, are adopting and installing,microgrids in onshore settings.
I''ve spent the last 15 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. I was an energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World before moving to business-to-business media at PennWell Publishing, which later became Clarion Events, where I covered the electric power industry. I joined Endeavor Business Media in November 2021 to help launch EnergyTech, one of the company''s newest media brands. I joined Microgrid Knowledge in July 2023.
I earned my Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. My career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World, all in Oklahoma . I have been married to Laura for the past 33-plus years and we have four children and one adorable granddaughter. We want the energy transition to make their lives better in the future.
Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech are focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.
At the same time, many ports are working to reverse those environmental impacts with moves to electrification and microgrids. In the U.S., ports at Los Angeles, Long Beach, Galveston, Oakland, San Diego, Bellingham, Wash., and Cleveland, among others, are stepping into the energy transition with projects ranging from electrifying fleets to warehouse equipment.
So much is going on port-side that the Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL) and its operator, Battelle, published a new “Port Electrification Handbook: A Reference to Aid U.S. Port Energy Transitions”. PNNL and Battelle prepared the guide under contract for the U.S. Department of Energy.
Among the contributors to the handbook include some of the ports noted above, as well as the Georgia Ports Authority, the Ports of Alaska, Seattle and Detroit, Sandia National Laboratories and the Northwest Seaport Alliance, among others.
“Port electrification can take many forms, such as electrifying cargo handling equipment or deploying a microgrid to power critical port infrastructure,” reads the executive summary to the PNNL Port Electrification Handbook. “The goals of this handbook are the following: Help port operators and planners evaluate different electrification technologies; explain how these technologies could aid and impact ports and surrounding communities; provide step-by-step considerations for port electrification.”
More than 2 billion short tons of cargo pass through U.S. ports every year, even during the supply chain constraints of the COVID pandemic. Those containers comprise close to 40% of global freight value, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
These volumes make decarbonization both a challenge and a priority, energy transition experts say. The benefits of port and fleet electrification include improved air and water quality, noise reduction, long-term cost savings, critical infrastructure resiliency and energy independence, according to the PNNL handbook.
The challenges are equipment availability, upfront costs, utility coordination, labor impacts and electrical supply, the document noted. For many ports seriously undertaking electrification, the planners are increasingly turning to on-site microgrids to offset electricity resource and delivery constraints at the power utility level.
Earlier this week, logistics firm Prologis and its Maersk-owned partner, Performance Team, launched a heavy-duty charging depot near the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which are among the nation’s busiest cargo transport facilities. The charging depot is powered by a large microgrid that includes 2.75 MW of fuel-flexible linear generators and 18 MWh of battery storage capacity.
The Port of Long Beach is busy on several electrification fronts inside the facility grounds. Toyota''s vehicle processing facility is now completely powered by on-site renewable energy, including a biogas-to-hydrogen production system.
“Intermittent disruptions from the bulk power system can interrupt the power supply to the electrified port, resulting in an impact to port operations,” the document reads. “Microgrids not only enable a backup source of power for critical facilities, but they can also be used to keep operations running during shorter outages or enable a limited set for disaster recovery.”
The Port Electrification Handbook acknowledges that upfront investment costs for microgrids and other equipment can be expensive. Long-term, however, electrification can result in significant cost savings as electric equipment is often more energy efficient and can reduce operational costs over the long haul.
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