Abstract
Electrification is taking place to reduce the emissions from waterborne transport by substituting ships’ auxiliary engine generation with shore power, therefore the power demand at berths increases dramatically. In this paper, we take Yangshan Port as an example to evaluates the feasibility of applying photovoltaic (PV) technology to suffice its potential shore power demand based on geographic information system. The results show the potential shore power demand at Yangshan port is 288.8 MW, which can be sufficed by deploying PV either on available land or on water area. The further techno-economic comparison between conventional grounding PV and floating PV reveals that although the system cost of floating PV is higher than grounding PV, the higher efficiency of floating PV due to the cooling effect of water, in turn, results in a lower levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). The LCOE of All types of PV system is much lower than the retail electricity rate at Yangshan Port, which indicates that with the assistance of PV technology, high cost, the biggest hindrance of prompting shore power at Yangshan port can be overcome, and integrating PV technology at ports is a promising and practical solution to cope with electrification trend in waterborne transport sector.