Portsmouth City Council's cabinet has approved plans to construct shore power charging facilities at Portsmouth International Port to allow visiting ships to switch their engines off whilst alongside.
This includes the short-term development of a battery storage solution, for providing shore power to smaller cruise vessels, as well as a long-term ambition of supplying all vessels that visit the port.
With an existing AI-controlled "master" battery on-site, funded by Innovate UK, combined with new battery storage being installed alongside a new solar array, the port will have enough energy to supply small cruise ships whilst alongside. One of the port's long-standing customers, Noble Caledonia, has agreed to upgrade its vessels to take shore power, when the project goes ahead.
For the longer term, options are now being explored to increase the amount of power available at the port, so that shore power can be rolled out to all of the berths at Portsmouth.
