ERMA FIRST, a leading sustainable marine solutions provider, has published a new whitepaper which presents alternative maritime power solutions as the key to greener ports as the regulatory landscape increasingly favours shore power capabilities.

Available to download, the new whitepaper – Alternative Maritime Power: The Key to Greener Ports – offers an in-depth review of the environmental and operational benefits of shore power. It outlines the impact of air pollution from ports on local communities and the surrounding environment and the level of pollution generated by vessels at berth, also providing a summary of the rapidly changing regulatory frameworks that require ships and ports to have shore power capabilities.

The paper goes on to discuss shore power as an alternative fuel, highlighting the need for standardisation, the basic architecture required and system variations before introducing ERMA FIRST’s revolutionary shore power solution – BLUE CONNECT.

Interest in Alternative Maritime Power (AMP) – or cold-ironing – solutions has continued to gather pace as efforts to reduce emissions remains a top priority for the shipping sector. When at berth and running diesel-fuelled auxiliary engines to power the hotel load, a vessel emits a harmful combination of pollutants. They include carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides and particulate matter – all of which are known to contribute to poor air quality and to have a negative impact on health and the environment.

Dimitris Tsoulos, BLUE CONNECT Director at ERMA FIRST, said: “Shore power solutions can effectively eliminate exhaust gases, particulate matter and noise as they allow ships to completely shut-down their auxiliary engines and connect to an onshore power supply. To help achieve the industry’s decarbonisation goals and protect local communities and ecosystems, ship owners, managers and ports need to start taking the necessary steps towards ensuring shore power connections are available worldwide.

“The purpose of ERMA FIRST’s new whitepaper is to help present the case for shore power as an alternative fuel and an environmentally efficient solution as regulations continue to tighten, while providing insight into key technical specifications which must be considered.”