CONTAINER HANDLING

The zero emissions container ship

Mark Sisson, senior port planner and analyst, and Krystle McBride, transportation analyst, AECOM, Oakland, CA, US

Background
Air emissions from port activity have received a great deal of scrutiny in the past decade, especially in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach which are the largest two container ports in North America by far. Sources of emissions tend to be grouped into three broad categories: terminal handling equipment, trucks, and ships. Electrification of terminal equipment coupled with the relatively quick turnover of equipment and sophisticated exhaust controls has greatly reduced emissions from this source. As part of their clean truck program, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, along with the trucking industry, have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past few years to modernize the drayage truck fleet serving the port and reduce emissions. Research into further emissions reductions from switches to natural gas or electrification of drayage trucks has the potential to yield even larger reductions in the near future. Ships have proven more difficult to modify in order to reduce emissions. At berth, they can be plugged into shore power to allow zero emission hotelling operations, but as soon as a ship sets sail, giant engines burning low grade bunker fuel spew out a great deal of emissions while the ship is still in port and near shore. According to 2009 emission data from the Roadmap for Moving Forward with Zero Emission Technologies at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles issued in August 2011, ocean going vessels now account for 43 percent of all nitrogen oxides and 60 percent of all diesel particulate matter from port operations. This report states that: outside of at-berth operations (i.e. shorepower), it is not practical at this time to pursue zero emission operation of OGVs due to technical and operational constraints. This paper examines the possibility of overcoming these constraints with the example of adding a large amount of lead acid batteries to a large containership. The fact that berths in Los Angeles and Long Beach are (or soon will be) equipped with shore power allows ships to not only turn off engines while at berth, but to potentially use the high voltage connection and one to two days of berth time to recharge a large volume of batteries while at berth.

Meeting the energy demands of ships

The calculations in this paper assume a hypothetical large containership of approximately 10,000 TEU capacity. The main engine on such a ship will likely be approximately 60,000 kilowatts in size. If we are concerned about emissions within a 40 nautical mile radius of the port (this range has been used in air emissions studies at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in the past), it will take approximately five hours of vessel run time to maneuver away from berth and outside of this range. This calculation is based on a mean speed of 12 nautical miles per hour from a vessel with a maximum speed of 24 nautical miles per hour, plus an hour of time to maneuver at very low speed from the berth to the edge of the breakwater. According to calculations presented in the Port of Los Angeles Inventory of Air Emissions-2010 , during these five hours, the main engines will be running at approximately 11 percent of power, which means, for our above example, a total energy use of 33 megawatt hours. According to allaboutbatteries.com, lead acid batteries have an energy density of 0.041 megawatt hours per metric ton. Approximately 800 metric tons of batteries would therefore be required to travel 40 nautical miles away from port in electric mode. Although 800 metric tons may sound like a tremendous amount of weight, a 10,000 TEU container vessel will have a gross weight of approximately 100,000 metric tons, and will be able to carry 10,000 metric tons of bunker fuel and 30,000 metric tons of ballast water. Since the batteries will act as ballast, it may be possible to simply reduce the ballast water tank capacity by 800 metric tons and have little to no impact on the overall operating weight of the vessel under most circumstances. As a point of comparison, a single layer of car batteries (approximately 20 centimeters in height) arrayed at the bottom of a 10,000 TEU container ship will weigh approximately 2,500 metric tons.

The solution
In the November 21, 2011 issue of Maritime Executive magazine, Harry Valentine proposes the use of batteries in ships using the St

Container ship polluting the air.

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CONTAINER HANDLING

Example shore to ship power arrangement.

Courtesy of Cavotec

there may be compelling reasons for ship owners to maximize battery capacity in order to save on overall energy cost of vessel operations since this is by far the largest cost element of container ship operations. In order for the battery bunker fuel hybrid ship concept to move from a hypothetical study to reality, both ports and shipping lines must plan for change. Ports must ensure that sufficient high voltage power is available not only to run the ship while at berth, but to also to charge batteries. Large ships such as the one used in our example may require 2 megawatts or more for battery charging in order to reach a full charge in less time than is required for stevedoring activity. Even higher rates of charge may be desirable in the long-term if battery technology evolves to allow a ship to cover a significant fraction of its journey across the open ocean on electric power.

Connection details for high voltage shore to ship power.

Summary
Upgrading a ship to carry 800 metric tons or more of batteries is not a trivial exercise, but the resulting fuel savings may eventually become so compelling that vessel operators adapt this as the new standard. If ports or nearby communities who are currently suffering from ship emissions wish to accelerate this evolution to electric power, they have the same tools available as they do for encouraging vessel operators to equip ships to accept shore power. These range from the carrots of financial discounts at berth and subsidized rates of electric power to the sticks of mandates written into the terms of new leases, or financial penalties for calling in ships not equipped with battery systems.
ENQUIRIES

Lawrence Seaway. Mr. Valentine states that: advances in grid-scale electrical battery storage technology can allow for the installation of such batteries over a wide area and limited height, in the lower levels of a ship. Although lead acid batteries were used in this hypothetical example due to their low cost, the costs of higher performance battery types, such as lithium ion, are rapidly declining and may approach the cost per unit weight of lead acid batteries within a few years, whilst offering three times the energy density or more. Depending on the relative cost of batteries set against bunker fuel,
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Mark Sisson leads AECOMs marine analysis group. He is responsible for business development, project execution, and oversight of research and development of our simulation models. He has 17 years of experience managing and executing a wide range of marine terminal planning, simulation, and analysis projects.

Krystle McBride is a transportation analyst who has worked on a variety of analysis, simulation, and market research projects related to marine terminals. She has experience in analyzing operations of container terminals and bulk facilities. She has also conducting significant research into green portrelated subjects, including performing emissions estimates.

Mark Sisson, P.E. AECOM, 2101 Webster St, Suite 1900 Oakland CA, 94612 US Direct: +1 (510) 844-0549 Mobile: +1 (510) 407-3295 Fax: +1 (510) 763-2796 Email: mark.sisson@aecom.com Web: www.aecom.com

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Courtesy of Cavotec