Long Beach
At the US Port of Long Beach OPS has been developed by the port operators and British Petroleum (BP) and came on line in 2008. This voluntary collaboration ensued from negotiations on the terminal lease agreement.
First tanker application
This OPS project is special as it is the first shoreside electricity connection in the world that has been developed for tankers. Two tankers have been fitted with the necessary equipment to use shoreside power
Because of safety issues, feeding OPS to tankers has been a challenge. As tankers generally carry highly flammable cargoes, the fitting and operation of the OPS system had to be designed such that safety was not compromised. The strict regulations in force for tankers resulted in a longer test period compared with other categories of vessel that have been connected.
System design
A power transformer installed in the oil terminal berth is used to transform the local grid voltage to 6.6 kV at 60 Hz. The ships receive 10 MVA through three cables, which are rolled out from the berth.
Costs
The Alaska Tanker Company (BP-owned) has equipped two of their vessels that regularly visit the port to plug into the BP Terminal, which supplies local refineries with crude oil. The joint project, implemented on a voluntary basis, was completed at a cost of US $ 23.7 million — US $ 17.5 million from the Port and US $ 6.2 million from BP.
Five-year programme
The Port of Long Beach plans to apply OPS in 31 other berths, 16 of them in the current 5-year programme. The total associated costs are around US $ 200 million.
The port is also conducting tests on another emission reduction technique (the baghouse system) at a bulk terminal and at terminals not suited for OPS from an infrastructure perspective.
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