Three-way deal brings shore power to cruise ships

PortMiami is paving the way for shore power in Florida as it prepares to plug in the first vessel this year.

“We’re going to be the first port in Florida to have shore power vessels and we’re going to be the largest on the whole entire East Coast if not the US,” said Hydi Webb, director and CEO of PortMiami.

In late spring the first vessel will be plugged in, said Ms. Webb. “You have to commission a terminal and you have to commission each ship and it takes about three weeks for each vessel to be committed, so the first one will roll out sometime in late spring.”

Five terminals will be shore power ready and three can plug in at any given time.

“Carnival [Cruise Line] will share it with Virgin [Voyages], so if a Carnival ship is turned on, then a Virgin [ship] won’t,” said Ms. Webb. “We go through the itinerary planning and we plan that out in advance, so Carnival and Virgin will share, Royal [Caribbean] and NCL [Norwegian Cruise Line] will share, and then the new terminal that’s under construction with MSC [Cruises], they’ll have their own shore power as well.”

Shore power allows cruise vessels, while docked at the seaport, to turn off their engines and plug into the local grid, said Ms. Webb. This reduces the vessel’s emissions by as much as 98%.

“I’m very concerned about our environment,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. “We have a very aggressive carbon reduction plan for the county as part of our obligation to the world and the future of the world, so it turns out that the emissions at the port are a significant pollutant. I learned about shore power when I was a county commissioner and talked about it with the then port director – which at the time I didn’t have any direct role with the port – and the director told me that he didn’t think there was much appetite on the cruise industry for moving in that direction.”

Despite the pushback, the mayor said she decided to bring it back.

“We started by approaching the major cruise operators because we would need their cooperation,” said Mayor Levine Cava. “They are the ones that have to bring ships to port that are capable of plugging into shore power. We spoke to FPL [Florida Power and Light] to make sure that they were on board with building the infrastructure, and we spoke to the major cruise industry and cruise lines and they all agreed and we had a joint MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] that they all signed, saying that they were committed. It was a great day. They were very receptive.”

The MOU was signed in February 2021, said Ms. Webb. At the time, Juan Kuryla was the port director. “This has been something that has been talked about for quite some time and it’s exciting to see it become a reality.”

The cruise industry plays a pivotal role.

“It’s not just about the port’s ability to produce the infrastructure and the access points,” said Mayor Levine Cava. “The cruise industries signed an agreement, but they had to have ships that could plug it in…. I think maybe one or two of them already did have ships, others had to actually bring those ships into their fleet.”

There were three parties to the MOU: the county, which committed to “providing the management systems in order for the ships to be able to plug in,” said Ms. Webb, “FPL, which is our local energy company, they are providing the capital investment and the infrastructure, and then, as the mayor said, the cruise lines are outfitting their vessels so they can be shore power capable, shore power ready.”

“The newer ones are built for that,” she said, “but the older ones need to be converted over and we have. From the five cruise lines that signed up for shore power here at the port, all of our major cruise brands – we have a minimum of two vessels from each line up to six vessels from each line that are going to commit and actually plug in when the program is ready.”

The conversation of sustainability is present as shore power aims to diminish vessels’ emissions.

“Our goal is net zero carbon emissions in our supply chain by 50% by 2030, and fully net carbon controlled by 2050,” said Mayor Levine Cava. “And so the port is a part of our infrastructure where we can make improvements that will contribute, as well as the airport, where we also are reducing.”

“We’ve received $21.7 million in grants in combination from the state and the federal government for the shore power project alone,” said Ms. Webb.

The seaport has many initiatives that will contribute to reducing emissions, said Ms. Webb. All new cruise terminals that are being built are LEED certified with a minimum of silver certification. “Shore power is probably the most aggressive in such a short time period to get accomplished, but there’s many other projects that we’re doing in addition to the shore power to meet these goals.”

In 2022, PortMiami received a grant from the US Department of Transportation’s RAISE program.

“We received a $16 million grant, a RAISE grant from the federal government to help with our sustainability, and one of those projects is to expand our rail capacity here at the port,” said Ms. Webb. “We will be going from three tracks to five tracks. What that does is it allows us to have another alternative of bringing cargo on and off the port to reduce the emissions from trucks, as well as the infrastructure inside the yard are all going to be more resilient and not use diesel.”

The completion date for the two rail tracks is 2027.