Port of Oakland adding shoreside powering equipment

Port officials have approved the purchase of a high-voltage cable system that can connect more vessels to Oakland’s landside power grid.    The Port of Oakland, which for years has had a problem with ships not being able to plug into its onboard power cables due to vessels berthing beyond the cables’ reach, is commissioning new equipment to help solve the problem.
   Port officials have approved the purchase of a high-voltage cable system that can connect more vessels to Oakland’s landside power grid, the port said in a statement Monday. The 200-foot cable-on-reel system, according to the port, will connect to ships that can’t closely align with landside electrical vaults while at berth.
   When the ships plug into the vaults, they’ll be able to switch off their onboard diesel engines and rely on grid power.
   The system is slated to be placed at the port’s largest, busiest location, the Oakland International Container Terminal, later this year, according to the port.
   The way the new $230,000 cable system will work is that a 10-foot-tall reel would be affixed to a trailer, then the mobile platform positioned along vessels. The cable would then connect ships to one of the marine terminal’s 18 shoreside electrical vaults.
   The port said its engineers have run two successful trials of the mobile cable system, and that the technology is expected to be deployed full-time by this fall.
   Since shoreside power was installed at the port in 2009, it has helped cut emissions by 76 percent, according to port data. Nearly 400 vessels are already equipped to plug into Oakland’s landside electrical system.