The virtual synchronous generator (VSG) control has been extensively applied for realizing grid-friendly interconnections of power converters. Nevertheless, due to the direct shaft dynamics emulation, low-frequency power oscillations may be introduced in the case of limited damping effects. To solve this issue, power control law modifications have been proposed based on the feedback control theory. Although power oscillations can be suppressed to an acceptable level, the original inertial response of the VSG will be significantly degraded. This letter proposes a new damping method based on the reference feedforward control. The proposed method is able to effectively attenuate poorly damped power oscillations in VSG-controlled converters without affecting the original inertial response. Theoretical analysis and effectiveness of the proposed damping method have been validated by both electromagnetic transient simulations and experiments.

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.

Seaports are well known as the medium that has evolved into the central link between sea and land for complex marine activities. The growth in maritime logistics particularly necessitates a large volume of energy supply in order to maintain the operation of sea trade, resulting in an imbalance between generation and demand sides. Future projections for three major concerns show an increase in load demand, cost of operation, and environmental issues. In order to overcome these problems, integrating microgrids as an innovative technology in the seaport power system appears to be a vital strategy. It is believed that microgrids enhance seaport operation by providing sustainable, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective energy. Although microgrids are well established and widely used in a variety of operations on land, their incorporation into the seaport is still limited. The involvement of a variety of heavy loads such as all-electric ships, cranes, cold ironing, and buildings infrastructure renders it a complicated arrangement task in several aspects, which necessitates further research and leaves space for improvement. In this paper, an overview of the seaport microgrids in terms of their concepts and operation management is presented. It provides the perspectives for integrating the microgrid concept into a seaport from both shore side and seaside as a smart initiative for the green port’s vision. Future research directions are discussed towards the development of a more efficient marine power system.

Energy efficiency and operational safety practices on ships have gained more importance due to the rules set by the International Maritime Organization in recent years. While approximately 70% of the fuel consumed on a commercial ship is utilized for the propulsion load, a significant portion of the remaining fuel is consumed by the auxiliary generators responsible for the ship’s onboard load. It is crucial to comprehend the impact of the electrical load on the ship’s generators, as it significantly assists maritime operators in strategic energy planning to minimize the chance of unexpected electrical breakdowns during operation. However, an appropriate handling mechanism is required when there are massive datasets and varied input data involved. Thus, this study implements data-driven approaches to estimate the load of a chemical tanker ship’s generator using a 1000-day real dataset. Two case studies were performed, namely, single load prediction for each generator and total load prediction for all generators. The prediction results show that for the single generator load prediction of DG1, DG2, and DG3, the decision tree model encountered the least errors for MAE (0.2364, 0.1306, and 0.1532), RMSE (0.2455, 0.2069, and 0.2182), and MAPE (17.493, 5.1139, and 7.7481). In contrast, the deep neural network outperforms all other prediction models in the case of total generation prediction, with values of 1.0866, 2.6049, and 14.728 for MAE, RMSE, and MAPE, respectively.

Seaports are well known as the medium that has evolved into the central link between sea and land for complex marine activities. The growth in maritime logistics especially necessitates a large volume of energy supply to maintain the operation of sea trade, resulting in an imbalance between the generation and demand sides. Future projections for three major concerns show an increase in load demand, cost of operation, and environmental issues. In order to overcome these problems, integrating microgrids as an innovative technology in the seaport power system appears to be a vital strategy. It is believed that microgrids enhance the seaport operation by providing sustainable, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective energy. Despite the fact that microgrids are well established and widely used in a variety of operations on land, their incorporation into the seaport is still limited. The involvement of a variety of heavy loads such as all-electric ships, cranes, cold ironing, and buildings infrastructure makes it a complicated arrangement task in several aspects, which necessitate further research and leave space for improvement. In this paper, an overview of the seaport microgrids in terms of their concepts, requirements, and operation management is presented. It provides the perspectives of integrating the microgrid concept into a seaport from both shore side and seaside as a smart initiative for the green ports vision. Future research directions are discussed towards the development of more efficient marine power system.