ShipCalculators.com

Cold ironing and shore power (OPS): the guide

Contents

A mid-size container ship sitting at a berth is not idle. Its auxiliary diesel generators run continuously to power reefer containers, cargo cranes, pumps, lighting, ventilation, and the accommodation. That load commonly sits between 1.5 and 6 MW for larger container ships, with the European Maritime Safety Agency design estimates averaging about 3,417 kW across gross-tonnage categories, and a single cruise ship can draw more than 12 MW at one connection point. Every one of those kilowatt-hours is generated by burning marine gas oil or fuel oil a few hundred meters from a residential waterfront, and the auxiliary engines emit sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and carbon dioxide while the ship is doing nothing but waiting.

Cold ironing replaces that on-ship generation with shore electricity. The term is old: a ship plugged into shore went “cold” because the boilers and engines could be shut down and the iron cooled. The modern names are shore power, onshore power supply (OPS), and, in California, alternative marine power (AMP). The technical answer behind all of them is the same: a high-voltage connection from a shoreside substation to a ship’s main switchboard, built to the ISO/IEC/IEEE 80005 standard family, that carries the full at-berth load so the auxiliary generators can stop. This guide covers what the connection is, the standards that govern it, the frequency-conversion problem, the connection and safety procedures, the three regulatory regimes now forcing adoption, the retrofit and grid-capacity constraints, and the one place where the carbon benefit can vanish. ShipCalculators.com pairs it with the cold ironing / OPS savings calculator, the CARB At-Berth compliance calculator, and the FuelEU OPS requirement checker.

What cold ironing is and the at-berth emissions problem

The auxiliary-engine load at berth

A merchant ship at sea draws its electrical service load from shaft generators or from auxiliary diesel generator sets running on the same fuel as the main engine. At berth the main engine is stopped, but the electrical demand does not disappear. Reefer ships and container ships carrying refrigerated boxes carry the highest at-berth loads because each reefer plug draws several kilowatts continuously; a fully loaded large container ship can have over a thousand reefer slots energized. Cargo operations add pump and crane load on tankers and bulk carriers. Cruise ships and ro-pax ferries carry the largest hotel loads of all, driven by air conditioning, galleys, and passenger services.

The auxiliary engines that supply this load are medium-speed or high-speed four-stroke diesels, typically running at part load when the ship is alongside. Part-load operation pushes specific fuel oil consumption up and combustion efficiency down, so the emissions per kilowatt-hour at berth are often worse than at the engine’s design point. The marine auxiliary engines and generators article covers the generator-set side of this in detail, and the marine electrical generation and distribution article covers the switchboard architecture that shore power has to integrate with.

Why berths are an air-quality flashpoint

At-berth emissions concentrate where people live. Major container and cruise terminals sit inside or next to dense urban areas: the San Pedro Bay ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the cruise quays of Venice and Barcelona, the container terminals of Hamburg and Rotterdam. The pollutants that matter most for public health near a berth are not carbon dioxide; they are the sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and fine particulate matter that a diesel exhaust puts out at ground level. This is why the first hard mandate came from a state air regulator, California, rather than from a climate body, and why local-pollutant elimination, not carbon, is the dominant regulatory driver.

The carbon dioxide picture is real but conditional. The Fourth IMO GHG Study 2020 estimated total shipping emitted about 1,056 million tonnes of CO2 in 2018, roughly 2.89% of global anthropogenic emissions, and at-berth operation is a measurable slice of that for port-intensive trades. Shore power moves the carbon off the ship and onto the grid; whether that helps the climate depends entirely on how the grid generates its electricity, a point the emission control areas framework and the grid-carbon discussion later in this article both turn on.

Cold ironing, OPS, AMP, and shore power as one thing

The vocabulary is fragmented by region but the engineering is not. “Cold ironing” is the older operational term. “Shore power” is the plain-language description. “Onshore power supply” (OPS) is the term used in European regulation and in ISO/IEC/IEEE 80005. “Alternative marine power” (AMP) is the California Air Resources Board and port-of-Los-Angeles term. “Shore-side electricity” (SSE) appears in some EU and EMSA documents. Throughout this article these refer to the same capability: a standardized electrical connection that lets a berthed ship shut down its generators and run on grid power.

The ISO/IEC/IEEE 80005 standard family

Why a standard was needed

Before standardization, the few shore-power installations that existed were bespoke. A ship fitted out for one port’s connection could not plug in at another, the safety interlocks differed, and the voltage, frequency, and earthing arrangements were not harmonized. A standard was needed so that a ship built with one shore-connection system could connect at any compliant berth and so that the connection sequence was safe and repeatable. The International Electrotechnical Commission, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the International Organization for Standardization developed the 80005 series jointly, which is why the standards carry all three bodies’ designations.

80005-1: high voltage shore connection

ISO/IEC/IEEE 80005-1 is the core document. The first edition was published in 2012; the second edition, IEC/IEEE 80005-1:2019, is the current base text, amended by Amendment 1 in 2022 and Amendment 2 in 2023. It governs high voltage shore connection (HVSC) systems for shore supply above 1 kV, which is the category that covers container ships, cruise ships, ro-ro vessels, tankers, and LNG carriers because their at-berth loads are too large to handle economically at low voltage.

The standard fixes the nominal shore-supply voltage at 6.6 kV or 11 kV three-phase. It specifies the single-cable power limits at each level: one cable serves an HVSC system up to about 3.5 MVA at 6.6 kV and up to about 6.5 MVA at 11 kV, so larger loads use multiple parallel cables. It defines the neutral earthing arrangement, with a neutral earthing resistor rated for a minimum of 25 A for 5 s, the shore substation step-down to ship voltage, the ship-side power receiving panel, the plug and socket interface, and the cable management system. The standard also defines the equipment on both sides of the connection and the protective functions that must operate during connection, energization, and disconnection.

80005-2: data communication

ISO/IEC/IEEE 80005-2, published in 2016, specifies the data interface between ship and shore for high and low voltage shore connection systems. It defines the signals, addresses, data types, and step-by-step communication procedures for non-emergency functions: the handshake that confirms the connection is made, the load-transfer commands, and the monitoring and control data exchanged between the shore management system and the ship’s power management system. Without this layer the two power systems cannot coordinate a safe parallel transfer.

80005-3: low voltage shore connection

Low voltage shore connection (LVSC) covers ships whose at-berth load is small enough to be served below 1 kV. The first version was a publicly available specification, IEC PAS 80005-3:2014, and the full standard, IEC/IEEE 80005-3:2025, has since superseded it. LVSC systems are intended for ships requiring up to about 1 MVA: smaller vessels, offshore-support craft, inland and harbor craft, and fishing vessels. The standard covers the low-voltage shore distribution, the shore-to-ship connection and interface equipment, any transformers, reactors, or converters, the ship distribution system, and the control, monitoring, interlocking, and power management. It does not apply to power supplied during dry docking or other out-of-service maintenance.

The class notation

A classification society confirms that a vessel’s shore-connection installation meets the technical requirements and issues a notation. DNV uses “Shore Power,” the American Bureau of Shipping uses “OPS” with sub-notations, and Lloyd’s Register issues a shore-supply notation. The notation tells a port and a charterer that the ship can connect safely at a compliant berth. The HVSC system component itself is described on the HVSC 6.6 / 11 kV shore power connection card.

HVSC architecture and the frequency-conversion problem

The physical connection

The high voltage shore connection runs from a shoreside substation to the ship’s main switchboard through a defined chain. The shore substation steps the local distribution voltage down to the ship-compatible 6.6 kV or 11 kV. The supply runs to a connection point on the quay, then through one or more high-voltage cables to a connection box on the ship’s deck or hull, then to a ship-side power receiving panel and transformer, and finally to the main switchboard where the load is transferred. The cables are the heavy, awkward part of the system: high-voltage shore cables weigh on the order of 5 to 10 kg per meter, so a single 60 m cable can mass around 500 kg, which is why every practical installation uses a powered cable management system either on the ship or on the pier.

Voltage selection

The choice between 6.6 kV and 11 kV follows the load. The per-cable limits in 80005-1 mean a ship with a 3.5 MVA berth load can use a single 6.6 kV cable, while a larger load is handled either at 11 kV or with parallel cables. Ship-side, the receiving transformer steps the shore voltage to the vessel’s distribution voltage, commonly 440 V or 690 V for the main bus, so the shore feed integrates with the existing switchboard rather than replacing it.

Why frequency conversion is the hard problem

The grid frequency a ship plugs into is not always the frequency its own electrical system runs on. Most of the world’s onshore grids run at 50 Hz; the Americas, parts of Japan, and a number of other systems run at 60 Hz. Merchant ships are very often built to 60 Hz because the standardized marine equipment market favors it, and many ships that trade globally run 60 Hz systems regardless of where they call. A 60 Hz ship plugging into a 50 Hz European berth cannot simply connect: the frequencies must match before any parallel transfer.

The fix is a static frequency converter, a power-electronic device that rectifies the incoming AC to DC and inverts it back at the target frequency. The converter can sit on shore, serving any ship, or on the ship, accepting any berth. A shore-side converter is the more common choice for ports serving a mixed fleet because it puts the conversion cost and weight on land rather than on every visiting ship. The conversion is not free: a static frequency converter introduces conversion losses on the order of a few percent and adds substantial capital cost to the installation, which is part of why early shore-power berths in 50 Hz countries were slow to serve 60 Hz ships.

Where frequency conversion is avoidable

Two situations avoid the converter. First, when ship and grid frequencies already match, the connection is a direct synchronization with no conversion stage. Second, some newer installations and some ships are built to handle either frequency natively, with dual-frequency-capable equipment, removing the need for a dedicated converter at that berth. Where a converter is needed, its rating must cover the largest ship the berth will serve, so a cruise berth designed for a 12 MW connection needs a converter sized accordingly, with headroom for the load fluctuation that a hotel load produces.

Connection procedure, safety, and interlocks

The connection sequence

Connecting a ship to shore power is a coordinated sequence between the shore management system and the ship’s power management system, governed by the data communication defined in 80005-2. Once the ship is berthed and moored, the cable is deployed by the cable management system and the plug is mated to the ship connection box. The data link is established and the two systems confirm the connection is mechanically and electrically sound. The shore supply is then energized to the ship-side panel with the ship’s generators still carrying the load. The two sources are brought into a controlled parallel, load is transferred from the generators to the shore feed, and the generators are then unloaded and stopped. Disconnection runs the sequence in reverse: load is transferred back to the generators, the shore feed is de-energized, the data link is closed, and the cable is disconnected and retracted.

Make-before-break versus blackout transfer

The clean way to transfer is make-before-break: the shore supply and the ship generators run in parallel for a short window so the load never loses power, then the generators drop off. This needs synchronization of voltage, frequency, and phase, and the data coordination to manage it. A simpler but disruptive alternative is a blackout transfer, where the load is dropped, the source is switched, and the load is restored, which interrupts service and is not used where continuity matters. From shore-side energization to a fully transferred running load, a controlled transfer commonly takes 30 to 60 minutes, and the same again to disconnect, so the connection overhead is real for short port calls.

Safety interlocks and earthing

The 80005 standards build the safety case around interlocks and earthing. Mechanical and electrical interlocks prevent the high-voltage plug from being mated or unmated while energized, prevent energization before the connection is confirmed, and prevent disconnection before the supply is de-energized. The neutral earthing system, with its specified earthing resistor, limits earth-fault current to a level the protection can clear without damaging equipment or endangering personnel. Emergency disconnection is a required function: if the ship has to leave the berth in a hurry, the system must be able to de-energize and release the connection safely and quickly. These provisions are what distinguish a standardized 80005 connection from an improvised hookup, and they are the basis on which a classification society issues its shore-power notation.

The regulatory drivers

The economics of shore power rarely close on fuel savings alone, so the adoption that is happening is driven by regulation. Three regimes matter most: California’s CARB At-Berth regulation, the EU’s Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation, and FuelEU Maritime. China runs a large national program, and the IMO provides the global framework that frames all of them.

California: the CARB At-Berth regulation

California was first. The California Air Resources Board adopted its original At-Berth regulation in 2007, with requirements taking effect in 2014. That rule applied only to container, refrigerated cargo, and cruise vessels visiting six California ports, and required fleets making frequent visits, 25 or more for container and reefer, 5 or more for cruise, to limit auxiliary engine operation while docked. By 2020 that original rule had cut at-berth emissions from the regulated fleet by about 80% across more than 13,000 vessel visits since 2014.

The Board adopted the 2020 At-Berth amendments on 27 August 2020, with in-use requirements beginning 1 January 2023, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency published its authorization in the Federal Register on 20 October 2023. The 2020 amendments expanded the regulation to additional vessel categories and additional terminals. The compliance dates phase in by vessel type: container, reefer, and cruise vessels from 1 January 2023; ro-ro vessels at all regulated terminals and tankers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach from 1 January 2025; and tankers at all other regulated ports from 1 January 2027.

The compliance mechanic is specific. Each regulated visit must use a CARB-Approved Emission Control Strategy (CAECS) for the duration of the visit unless an exception or alternative applies. Shore power is the primary CAECS, but the regulation also allows approved capture-and-control technology, including barge-mounted exhaust capture systems, so a ship that cannot plug in can still comply by capturing the auxiliary exhaust. The regulation provides flexibility mechanisms for documented failures: Vessel Incident Events, Terminal Incident Events, an Innovative Concepts pathway, and a Remediation Fund into which a vessel pays when emissions reductions are missed because of equipment or connection problems. The full mechanics, including the first-visit and reporting provisions, are covered in the CARB At-Berth regulation article and computed by the CARB At-Berth compliance calculator.

The European Union: AFIR shore-side infrastructure

The EU split the problem into two regulations, one for the shore and one for the ship. The Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2023/1804, adopted 13 September 2023 and in force from 13 April 2024, is the shore-side half. Its Article 9 requires member states to ensure that a minimum shore-side electricity supply is provided to seagoing container ships and seagoing passenger ships at maritime ports of the trans-European transport network by 1 January 2030.

The trigger is call frequency, not a blanket obligation. The requirement applies to ports whose three-year average annual port calls exceed defined thresholds for ships above 5,000 GT: above 50 calls for container ships, above 40 for ro-ro passenger ships and high-speed passenger craft, and above 25 for other passenger ships. Where the threshold is met, the port must provide enough OPS to meet at least 90% of the demand from the relevant ship calls. AFIR is infrastructure law: it forces ports to build the connection points but does not itself compel a ship to plug in. That ship-side obligation is FuelEU’s job.

The European Union: FuelEU Maritime at berth

FuelEU Maritime, Regulation (EU) 2023/1805, adopted the same day as AFIR and applicable from 1 January 2025, carries the ship-side at-berth obligation in its Article 6. From 1 January 2030, a container ship or passenger ship above 5,000 GT moored at a quayside in a port covered by AFIR Article 9 and under the jurisdiction of a member state must connect to OPS and use it for all of its electrical power demand at berth. From 1 January 2035, the same obligation extends to any EU or EEA berth equipped with available OPS, whether or not the port falls under AFIR Article 9.

The obligation has bounded exemptions. A stay of less than two hours at the quayside is exempt, because the connection overhead would consume the stay. A ship using an approved zero-emission technology instead of OPS is exempt; the FuelEU Annex III technology groups include onboard energy storage, so a ship that runs its berth load from batteries that release none of the regulated pollutants can meet the obligation without plugging in, a route that connects to battery-hybrid and full-electric propulsion. Unavailable or incompatible connections, emergencies, and unplanned safety-driven calls are also exempt.

Non-compliance carries a price. A company with at least one non-compliant port call pays a FuelEU penalty equal to EUR 1.5 multiplied by the ship’s established total electrical power demand at berth and by the total number of non-compliant hours. The penalty mechanics and the broader FuelEU intensity framework are covered in FuelEU Maritime explained and in the related FuelEU penalties, pooling, and the RFNBO multiplier article, and the at-berth exposure is computed by the FuelEU OPS requirement checker. Because AFIR and FuelEU stack on top of the EU Emissions Trading System for shipping, the combined commercial pressure is larger than any one instrument; the interaction is the subject of the EU ETS and FuelEU double regulation article.

China and other ports

China ran one of the largest shore-power build-outs during its thirteenth five-year plan period, 2016 to 2020. The Ministry of Transport published a Port Shore Power Plan on 20 July 2017 targeting hundreds of new shore-power berths, and major ports installed more than 400 connections for container ships, ro-ro passenger vessels, cruise ships, passenger vessels above 3,000 tonnes, and dry bulk carriers above 50,000 tonnes. The Chinese rule requires a ship fitted with shore-power equipment to use it when berthing for more than 3 hours at a coastal port with shore-power capability, or more than 2 hours at an inland port, with tankers excepted, and provides for fines of 10,000 to 500,000 yuan for non-use. China’s monitoring framework links to the broader China data collection system.

The IMO framework

The IMO does not mandate shore power, but it provides the framework the regional rules sit inside. The 2023 IMO Strategy on Reduction of GHG Emissions from Ships sets the decarbonization trajectory that at-berth measures contribute to. MEPC resolution MEPC.323(74), adopted at MEPC 74 in May 2019, encouraged voluntary cooperation between ports and shipping to reduce GHG emissions, including the provision of onshore power supply preferably from renewable sources, and MEPC 79 in December 2022 revised it as MEPC.366(79) to extend that cooperation across the value chain. Shore power is one of the operational measures that improves a ship’s carbon intensity indicator by removing at-berth fuel from the annual numerator.

Retrofit and newbuild considerations

Newbuild

Designing shore power into a newbuild is far cheaper than retrofitting it. On a newbuild the receiving transformer, the high-voltage receiving panel, the switchboard tie, the cable management system, and the power management system integration are designed in from the start, sized for the ship’s actual at-berth load, and located where they fit the general arrangement. The class notation is obtained as part of the build. For ships in scope of FuelEU Maritime, designing for OPS is now effectively mandatory regardless of the capital cost, because the alternative is the EUR 1.5 per kWh penalty on every non-compliant hour from 2030.

Retrofit

Retrofitting an existing ship is the harder case. The ship needs a receiving panel, a transformer, switchgear modifications to allow parallel transfer, deck or hull penetrations for the connection box, and integration of the shore connection into a power management system that was not designed for it. Space and weight on an existing ship are constrained, the work is done in dry dock or during a long lay-up, and the electrical integration with an older switchboard can be the most difficult part. The retrofit cost varies widely with ship type and existing electrical architecture, and for a ship near the end of its trading life the payback may never arrive on fuel savings alone, which again is why the regulatory penalty, not the fuel bill, drives the decision.

Interaction with at-berth alternatives

Shore power is not the only way to cut at-berth emissions. Onboard battery systems can carry a short berth stay with no shore connection at all, which FuelEU recognizes as a zero-emission technology. Capture-and-control systems, including barge-mounted exhaust treatment, satisfy CARB as an alternative CAECS without requiring the ship to plug in. Onboard carbon capture is an emerging route covered in onboard carbon capture. For LNG-fueled and dual-fuel ships, at-berth generation on gas already cuts the local-pollutant footprint relative to oil, as discussed in LNG as marine fuel, though it does not match the zero-at-berth result of a clean shore connection.

Cost and grid-capacity constraints

The shore-side capital and grid problem

The largest cost in shore power is usually on land, not on the ship. A high-power berth needs a substation, a frequency converter where the fleet frequency differs from the grid, the quayside connection point, and the cable management system, and behind all of that the local electrical grid has to be able to deliver the peak demand. A single cruise ship pulling 12 MW or more is a substantial new load on a port-city distribution network, and several berths energized at once can exceed the capacity the local grid was built for. In older ports, the grid reinforcement, new feeders, transformers, and sometimes a new substation, can take years and dominate the project timeline and cost. This is the constraint AFIR’s 90%-of-demand target runs into: building the connection points is straightforward compared with delivering the power behind them.

The price of shore-power electricity

Shore-power electricity is rarely priced at the bare commercial grid rate. The port has to recover the capital cost of the substation, converter, and cabling, and it adds an operating margin, so the delivered shore-power kWh commonly costs a multiple of the underlying grid rate. Against that, the ship saves the fuel it would have burned plus the avoided emissions cost. Whether shore power is cheaper than running the generators depends on the bunker price, the shore-power tariff, and any carbon or compliance cost on the avoided fuel. In a high-bunker-price environment with an EU ETS and FuelEU cost on the avoided fuel, shore power can win on cost; in a low-bunker, low-tariff case it may not, which is why the regulatory obligation rather than the spreadsheet is doing the work.

Connection-time and operational cost

The 30-to-60-minute connection and a similar disconnection consume berth time and crew effort on every call. For a ship making many short calls the cumulative connection overhead is a real operating cost, and it is the reason the two-hour exemption exists in FuelEU and the reason short-stay provisions appear across the regulations. The cable handling, even with a powered management system, adds a step to every arrival and departure that the crew has to execute correctly under the safety interlocks.

Where the emission benefit holds and where it does not

This is the part that separates shore power’s local benefit from its climate benefit, and it is the most misunderstood aspect of the technology.

The local-pollutant benefit is unconditional. When the auxiliary engines stop, the sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter at the berth go to zero, regardless of how the shore electricity was generated. That elimination is the whole point of the CARB rule and the principal public-health rationale across every regime, and it does not depend on the grid mix at all.

The carbon dioxide benefit is conditional on the grid. Shore power does not destroy carbon; it relocates the generation from the ship to the grid. The net carbon outcome is the ship-side CO2 avoided minus the CO2 the grid emits to supply the same energy, and the grid term swings the result. The ship-side term itself comes from the connected load: the auxiliary fuel displaced is the at-berth load in kilowatts times the connected hours times the auxiliary specific fuel oil consumption, and the carbon avoided is that fuel mass times the fuel’s carbon factor. The grid-side term is the same delivered energy times the grid emission factor. Subtracting one from the other is the whole arithmetic, and the cold ironing / OPS savings calculator runs it for a specific call.

Favoided=PloadhSFOC106F_\text{avoided} = \frac{P_\text{load} \cdot h \cdot \text{SFOC}}{10^6}
SymbolMeaningUnit
FavoidedF_\text{avoided}Auxiliary fuel displaced by shore powert
PloadP_\text{load}Average hotel + cargo electrical loadkW
hhHours alongside on shore powerh
SFOC\text{SFOC}Aux engine SFOC at port loadg / kWh
CfC_fCO₂ factor of displaced aux fuelt CO₂ / t fuel
EFgrid\text{EF}_\text{grid}Shore-grid CO₂ emission factor - EU 2023 ≈ 250, Norway < 30, coal-heavy > 700g CO₂ / kWh
ΔCO2\Delta \text{CO}_2Net CO₂ saving (ship side minus shore side)t

Source: IEC 80005-1 - *High-voltage shore connection*; EU AFIR (EU) 2023/1804 - alternative fuels infrastructure

Calculate Cold Ironing Savings →

Worked through a single call, the conditionality is plain. A container ship sitting 36 hours at an EU berth with a 3,500 kW hotel and reefer load and an auxiliary SFOC of 220 g/kWh displaces about 27.7 t of marine gas oil, which at a carbon factor of 3.206 t CO2 per t fuel is 88.8 t of ship-side CO2 avoided. On the EU average grid, roughly 250 grams of CO2 per kWh in recent inventory estimates, the grid adds 31.5 t, so the net is a solidly positive 57.3 t saved on that one call. On a hydro-dominated grid such as Norway’s, below about 30 grams of CO2 per kWh, the grid term falls to around 3.2 t and almost the entire ship-side saving survives. On a coal-heavy grid above roughly 700 grams of CO2 per kWh, the grid term can equal or exceed the ship-side saving: at 750 grams per kWh it reaches 94.5 t, more than the 88.8 t avoided, so the net carbon turns negative even though the local-pollutant benefit at the berth is still complete. A port that connects ships to a coal-heavy grid has cleaned its waterfront air without cutting, and possibly while increasing, total carbon dioxide. The honest framing is that shore power is a guaranteed local-air-quality measure and a conditional climate measure, and the condition is the carbon intensity of the grid behind the plug.

Limitations

This article describes the framework as it stands in mid-2026, and several caveats apply. Regulatory dates and thresholds are taken from the official texts cited, but implementing acts, delegated regulations, and national transpositions add detail that changes between reading and application; the controlling document is always the current consolidated regulation text, not a summary. The CARB compliance mechanics, including the interim and incident-event provisions, are more detailed than the phased dates given here, and a vessel operator must work from the regulation and CARB’s guidance, not from this overview.

The load and emission figures are representative ranges, not vessel-specific values. At-berth load depends on the specific ship, its cargo, the season, and the operation; the EMSA design estimates are deliberately conservative for sizing shore infrastructure and overstate the load a typical ship actually draws. Grid emission factors vary by country, by year, and by the marginal generation actually serving a port, so a national average can be materially wrong for a specific berth. The 6.6 kV and 11 kV voltages and the per-cable power limits are the 80005-1 nominal values; a particular installation may differ within the standard’s allowances.

The savings formula is a first-order estimate. It does not model the load profile over a stay, the conversion and transmission losses, partial generator unloading, or the spinning-reserve generator some ships keep running for redundancy. For a compliance or investment decision the inputs should come from the ship’s NOx Technical File, the actual port-call electrical load analysis, the specific shore-power tariff, and the marginal grid emission factor for the port, not from the representative figures used here. Shore power is a guaranteed local-air-quality measure; its climate benefit is conditional on the grid, and that condition must be checked for the specific port before the carbon saving is claimed.

See also

Calculators

Related wiki articles

Frequently asked questions

What is cold ironing on a ship?
Cold ironing, also called shore power, onshore power supply (OPS), or alternative marine power (AMP), is the practice of connecting a berthed ship to the shore electrical grid so its auxiliary diesel generators can be shut down. The ship draws its hotel, cargo, and service load from shore instead of burning fuel at berth.
What voltage and frequency does high-voltage shore connection use?
ISO/IEC/IEEE 80005-1 standardizes high-voltage shore connection at a nominal 6.6 kV or 11 kV three-phase. Where the shore grid frequency (50 Hz in most of the world) differs from the ship's system frequency (60 Hz is common on merchant ships), a shore-side or ship-side frequency converter is required.
Does shore power always cut carbon dioxide?
No. Shore power eliminates local sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter at the berth in every case. The carbon dioxide outcome depends on the grid emission factor: on a low-carbon grid the net saving is large, but on a coal-heavy grid above roughly 700 grams of CO2 per kWh the net carbon saving shrinks toward zero or reverses.
When does FuelEU Maritime require ships to use shore power?
Under Article 6 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1805, container ships and passenger ships above 5,000 GT must connect to onshore power supply and use it for all electrical demand at berth from 1 January 2030 in ports covered by AFIR Article 9, and from 1 January 2035 at any EU or EEA berth equipped with available OPS, with a two-hour minimum-stay exemption.