Microgrids are among the promising green transition technologies that will provide enormous benefits to the seaports to manage major concerns over energy crises, environmental challenges, and economic issues. However, creating a good design for the seaport microgrid is a challenging task, considering different objectives, constraints, and uncertainties involved. To ensure the optimal operation of the system, determining the right microgrid configuration and component size at minimum cost is a vital decision at the design stage. This paper aims to design a hybrid system for a seaport microgrid with optimally sized components. The selected case study is the Port of Aalborg, Denmark. The proposed grid-connected structure consists of renewable energy sources (photovoltaic system and wind turbines), an energy storage system, and cold ironing facilities. The seaport architecture is then optimized by utilizing HOMER to meet the maximum load demand by considering important parameters such as solar global horizontal irradiance, temperature, and wind resources. Finally, the best configuration is analyzed in terms of economic feasibility, energy reliability, and environmental impacts.

For many offshore activities, including offshore oil and gas exploration and offshore wind farm construction, it is essential to keep the position and heading of the vessel stable. The dynamic positioning system is a progressive technology, which is extensively used in shipping and other maritime structures. To maintain the vessels or platforms from displacement, its thrusters are used automatically to control and stabilize the position and heading of vessels in sea state disturbances. The theory of dynamic positioning has been studied and developed in terms of control techniques to achieve greater accuracy and reduce ship movement caused by environmental disturbance for more than 30 years. This paper reviews the control strategies and architecture of the DPS in marine vessels. In addition, it suggests possible control principles and makes a comparison between the advantages and disadvantages of existing literature. Some details for future research on DP control challenges are discussed in this paper.

This paper presents the optimal design and specifies the dimension, energy planning and evaluates the performance of a microgrid to supply the electricity to the load by using integrated microgrid. The integrated system consists of PV, wind turbine and a battery for grid-connected. This paper also analyzes the performance of the designed system based on seaport located in Copenhagen, Denmark as a case study. The analysis is performed by using Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables (HOMER) software which includes optimization and sensitivity analysis result. The simulation result indicates that the implementation of microgrid technologies would be a convenient solution to supply the electricity to the load applied (shipboard).

Concerns about the impact of global warming caused by air pollution and depletion of fossil fuels have attracted attention and opportunities in transportation especially in maritime industry. In all electric ships, the electrical equipment including electric propulsion is connected to the common ship electrical network to achieve better fuel consumption with less emission. However, the low-load factor of the parallel diesel generators (DGs) in some operating conditions, can negatively affect the fuel consumption rate. As an alternative, two or more power sources such as batteries and renewable-based prime movers can be integrated into the system aboard to improve the overall system performance. By optimal scheduling of the power sources, poor low-load efficiency can be avoided and controllable units can be dispatched in an emission-aware and cost-effective manner. This paper analyzes how much the operating cost of a shipboard system can be improved (based on estimation of specific fuel consumption (SFC) curve of a real system) considering the dynamic load profile with and without energy storage systems (ESSs). The case study in this paper is a ferry with a conversion from traditional diesel mechanical power to electrical propulsion powered by DGs and ESSs.

Strict regulation on emissions of air pollutants imposed by the maritime authorities has led to the introduction of hybrid microgrids to the shipboard power systems (SPSs) which acts toward energy efficient ships with less pollution. A hybrid energy system can include different means of generation such as renewables (e.g., solar PV, wind power) and conventionals (e.g., diesel engines) as well as energy storage systems (ESSs) such as batteries, fuel cells and flywheels. To optimally manage different energy sources in a shipboard microgrid while meeting different technical/environmental constraints, it is necessary to set up an energy management system. This paper provides an overview of hybrid shipboard microgrids and discusses different methods of power and energy management in such systems which are essential for control, monitoring and optimizing the overall system performance in various mission profiles.

Trending in the maritime industry nowadays, is towards an energy efficient and fuel saving. Moreover, concerns regarding global warming issues caused by massive air pollution in sea area by the ship combustion engine and depletion of fossil fuels have attracted attention and opportunities for many parties. The electric propulsion has been used in ship for many years. It has triggered the concept of all electric ship where all electrical equipment including electric propulsion, connected to the electrical networks to achieve better fuel consumption with less emission. However, the main generation in the ship is still diesel generators. Connecting more generator in parallel is normal practice to cater the load. However, due to the nature of non-linear characteristic in thermal unit, such as diesel generator, based on specific fuel consumption (SFC) curve, the generator loading is not efficient when running the generator with low load factor or higher SFC. Thus, the effective energy scheduling is needed among the generators so that the generators is operated in optimum point. The case study in this paper is ferry, with a conversion from traditional diesel mechanical power to electric propulsion powered by diesel generator as a main source and energy storage as secondary source. This paper analyzes how much the operating cost of the scheduled system implemented in this practical electric ferry based on an estimation of SFC curve considering the dynamic load profile.