Construction of an onshore power supply plant to serve the commercial vessels has started at the Norwegenkai Terminal in the Port of Kiel, Germany.
The plant is expected to provide the cruise ferries with electrical power during their stay at Kiel.
Go deeper with GlobalData
The facility is being built by Siemens and will require an investment of around €1.3m and will be owned by the port of Kiel.
The plant will be developed as part of the BLUE PORT concept, which is expected to be used to construct additional facilities at Kiel.
Port of Kiel port director Dr Dirk Claus said: “Upon completion of the Norwegenkai onshore power plant, the Schwedenkai Terminal and the Cruise Shipping Terminal Ostseekai will also be equipped with onshore power supply facilities by 2020.
“It is our intention to provide half of all ship calls in Kiel with onshore power in future. Doing so means that we are setting a new European standard.”
The Norwegenkai plant will be developed to have a maximum power rating of 4.5MW at 10kV and a network frequency of 50Hz.
Its core components will include a land-to-ship power transfer station (PLUG), manufactured by NG3, as well as the air-insulated, metal-clad, medium-voltage switchboard.
The PLUG power transfer station features a programmable controller (PLC) to communicate with the medium-voltage switchboard situated in the onshore power supply station.
The switching procedures communicated by the ship through the interface will be performed automatically.
Before transferring power from shore to ship, the system will check the functionality of all plug and cable connections and then switch on the onshore power connection.
The ship coordinates itself with the onshore power plant to replace the on-board power supply with the onshore power plant.
