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September 9 2010 Alternative Maritime Power(AMP, cold ironing)
The AMP system is a good system but most ships need to be retrofitted to use it and the Port area infrastructure must be in place to provide the additional electricity. Some ships are not readily adaptable to AMP because they need the ships machinery (pumps) to unload their cargo. Tankers are a good example of such ships. On the other hand, container ships are not required to use ships machinery to unload/load their cargo. Cargo loading and unloading operations are accomplished by using shore side container cranes. When tankers unload their cargo they use large pumps. For the most part these pumps are powered by steam turbines. (99.3% of the worlds tanker fleet uses the steam turbine pumping system.) An apt analogy is the operation of an automobile - the pump is similar to the drive wheels and the turbine is similar to the motor. Tankers are built with large diesel engines for propulsion. They have boilers to produce steam in order to drive the cargo pump turbines moving the cargo to the shore tanks. It is not possible to retrofit this system to use AMP. A retrofit of this kind would require a complete rebuilding of the tanker’s machinery system and would be cost prohibitive. Pacific L. A. Marine Terminal LLC’s own studies indicate there is no trend in the tanker industry to retrofit presently operating tankers to accommodate AMP. Two major oil companies have built, or are currently constructing, a total of 9 diesel propelled and electric pumping tankers. These tankers were specifically designed to operate exclusively between Valdez, Alaska and the west coast of the United States. These tankers are readily adaptive to AMP because they call at the same ports and at the same terminals. However, if they were going to use AMP, the port terminals will require retrofitting and some of the tankers would have to install additional equipment. Most tankers are owned by independent tanker owners. The owners rent the tankers to oil companies to transport the crude oil and refined products. These tankers are built to trade around the world and not necessarily built for one type of trade. They are designed to operate in all kinds of weather and conduct cargo operations at all kinds of facilities. These facilities can vary from well placed terminals or to operate alongside another tanker to transfer cargo at sea. For this variety of service, tankers are built for reliability and safe operation. The steam turbine driven pump is a safe, proven operation and, therefore, tanker owners will probably not alter the design of their tankers for other forms of machinery. Pier 400, Berth 408 will be designed with a AMP system. All tankers which are equipped with the AMP technology will be able to utilize the berth's AMP system and decrease emissions.
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One of the methods to control ship emissions while a ship is in port is to use shore-supplied electricity to run lights, heating, air conditioning and hot water for the ship’s crew. This method of supplying electricity is called Alternative Marine Power (AMP). Another commonly used name for AMP is Cold Ironing. A heavy wire, resembling an extension cord, is extended from the pier, plugged into the ship’s receptacle and power is supplied to the ship to operate its machinery, but not its main engines. This allows the ship to shut down the diesel engines that normally drive the ship’s electrical generators. When the diesel engines are not operating, the ship’s emissions are greatly reduced.