United States: The Port of San Francisco has became the first Californian port, and one of only a handful of ports in the world, to provide shoreside electrical power for cruise ships while at berth.
Shoreside power results in zero air emissions while a ship is connected in port. This new system is not only the first in the state, but just the fourth in the world. The other cruise ports with shoreside power are Juneau (Alaska), Seattle (Washington), and Vancouver (Canada). The ports of Los Angeles and San Diego also plan to implement this system.
Island Princess is operated by Princess Cruises, who developed the shore power technology in Juneau in 2001. It expanded to Seattle in 2005 and Vancouver in 2009. Currently nine of the line's ships are outfitted to plug into a shoreside power source.
"We know that local air quality is an important issue in the Bay Area, so we're pleased to join with the port to debut this important environmental initiative," said Dean Brown, Princess Cruises executive vice-president.
"Our commitment to shore power technology has been nearly a 10-year effort, and we're very pleased we can now 'plug in' our ships in San Francisco."
The quest for shoreside power in San Francisco began in 2005, when the Port's Cruise Terminal Environmental Advisory Committee recommended this technology for any future cruise terminal development.
"The Port explored a number of funding options for shoreside power," explained Port Executive Director Monique Moyer, "and found initial success with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District's Carl Moyer Program, and later with the Environmental Protection Agency and San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission. We couldn't have done this without them."
"The zero-emission, greenhouse gas free shoreside power is generated by the gravity-based Hetch Hetchy Water System," said SFPUC General Manager Ed Harrington. "This is the same clean energy that each day powers our San Francisco municipal facilities, buses, and streetlights."
The EPA, through the West Coast Collaborative, helped fund the electrification of the Port of San Francisco's Pier 27, by awarding US$1.0 million to the port to build the infrastructure to electrify the cruise ships that berth at the Pier – a technology known as "cold ironing" or shorepower permits refrigeration, cooling, heating, lighting, emergency equipment, and other electrical equipment to receive continuous electrical power (with design capacity of at least 16 megawatts for berthed cruise ships) while the ships load or unload its passengers or cargo.
