Shore power demand for South African ports

The study develops a methodology to estimate shore power demand over time for a selection of ports in South Africa.

Maritime cargo transportation is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Some of those emissions stem from the usage of diesel engines to provide electricity for the hoteling phase. The hotelling phase is the period in where ships are “parked” in the ports and keep their engines running to supply power to their onboard systems. Hence there are emissions reductions to win if the power is supplied from the shore, which requires insights about the variability in demand.

Using records of vessel activity at a port each year, and the power demand from each vessel, the study creates a time series of peak average and maximum power demand for each port between 2018 and 2025.

The times series show that the port of Durban has by far the highest power demand, followed by the port of Cape Town. 

This power demand should be met with renewable energy, which ports receive via powerlines. It becomes therefore important to assess the capacity of the existing infrastructure to avoid overload, something the study “Load connection capactiy assessment of South African national ports” investigates.