The LoCOPS project is now officially started and the initial
work in relation to specifications is in progress. In LoCOPS
Ph 2 project, we aim to demonstrate our technology in operational environment, at
the Copen-hagen Malmö Port, one of the largest
Northern European cruise-ship ports) to prove that our technology will result
in a positive business case for ports.
PowerCon
aims to pursue a major market opportunity by demonstrating and further
commercializing a competitive Onshore Power Supply (OPS), to provide
electricity for large sea-going vessels when at quayside in port. The OPS
system not only reduces the consumption of fuel and the associated air
pollution but also eliminates acoustic noise and vibrations from the running
engines.
The
structures behind the unfavourable operational and capital expenses have been
hindering the deployment of OPS. Today’s high operational expenses are due to a
tax disadvantage on shore side electricity compared with tax-free bunker fuel
available for ships. Because of this, the European Commission in 2007 opened up
for exemptions from energy taxes for onshore power and some European countries
(e.g. Denmark, Sweden and Germany) can now provide shore side electricity at
reduced rate. The high capital expenses are seen as a consequence of the low
competition and relatively few capable suppliers on the market causing a high
bargaining power of the suppliers.
Comparable
trends have been seen within the wind power segment in the past where, over
time, the total cost of wind turbines has been lowered with great success to
compete with fossil fuels. Danish SME PowerCon (PC) have for the last 7 years
been part of this success, by adding significant savings into the wind power
industry with competitive power solutions. More specifically, we have developed
and are successfully commercializing a frequency converter for wind turbines,
which is up to 50% cheaper than competing solutions. Now, we aim at bringing
the same savings for the maritime sector by introducing a low
cost OPS for ships, based on the technology we developed for wind
turbines.
The project has reach the first 12 months, and
the overall progress is going as planned.
Despite that this is not an ideal situation and
required additional work, the project decided to look for an alternative
end-user that could step in as end user with short notice and with similar
possibilities in terms of ships entering the port and the likelihood of these
ships to connect to electricity on land.
The projects end-user has the roll of providing
the location and opportunities for
the test and validation of the Onshore Power System.
In relation to On-Shore Power projects in
Europe, and in general the transaction in the transport sector from fossil
power to electricity power, Norway is very much in front in terms of providing
initiatives for the maritime industry to use Shore Power. Norway are very
focused about the environmental effects of the marine sector including the
cruise industry and are discussing whether they by regulation can provide more
pressure on the shipping industry to convert for more environmental friendly
methods.
At this stage the project still
expects to keep the overall time schedule with a finished project end of 2018
The port of Kristiansand is ready to step in as
end-user and have the required infrastructure in place. The Port was
destination of 62 cruise ships in 2016 and saw a 100 percent growth from 2012
until 2016. The presence of cruise ships in the whole season combined with the
Norwegian political appeal and encouragement
to the maritime transport sector of using On-shore
Power, seems to be a perfect match to use Kristiansand port as end-user for the
LoCOPS project.