Cold Ironing Techno-economical Study for a Port with Photovoltaic Plants

According to European regulation 2023/1804/EU, all member states shall ensure the availability of cold ironing (CI) in large ports for at least 90% of the total number of port calls of seagoing ships above 5,000 gross tonnes, by the end of 2029. This is a measure expected to improve air quality, especially in the vicinity of the port's urban environment. Preliminary studies show that there are financial viability issues related to CI installations, under the current electricity pricing policies and the high investment cost for CI infrastructure. In this paper, the financial viability of the penetration of photovoltaic (PV) units optimized from spatial and power produced point of view is investigated. The proposed method is applied to various ship types, indicatively for the Thessaloniki Port, taking into consideration the connection with the Medium Voltage (MV) electricity distribution grid, as well as the construction, operation, and maintenance costs, under modified economic criterion of benefit-cost ratio (BCR).