Energy Shift-Renewables Integration at Major Ports – A Step Forward to Solve Air Pollution

Today’s industrialized world requires more power generation that can be produced by distributed renewable energy resources (DERs) to minimize air pollution and global health issues. Major DERs are solar farms, windmill farms, and battery storage systems. Newer DERs impacting major ports around the world are hydrogen (H2) and liquid natural gases (LNGs). The authors are working with Port of Long Beach (POLB) (a major port in California) that has seen implementation of H2 and LNG at POLB. Both H2 and LNG fall under energy shift renewables. The penetration of all DERS includes applications of power electronics posing a major challenge for faster fault clearing at the point of common coupling between the grid and the industrial facility such as port to avoid power outages to port and port facilities. This paper provides the current state of protection and networked controllers that provide fast control and communication signals to nearby grid substations and 24/7 utility control centers to manage fault condition without power outages that would affect the industry and public in general as well as the port’s service continuity. This paper includes the POLB electrical infrastructure configuration based upon the master plan study to accommodate cold-ironing projects and future dc power supply to ships and boats, based upon newer IEC/IEEE 80005-4 standard currently under development. This paper also discusses the application of microgrids for port essential loads to maintain service continuity until the fault is cleared.