New POTENT-X Toolkit Explores the Grid Impacts of Electrification

POTENT-X has completed its latest deliverable, D5 Mathematical Tool Kit, which develops methods and modelling tools to help ports understand and prepare for the effects of electrification on electricity grids.

Port electrification can take many forms. Ships can connect to electricity while berthed instead of running their engines, port equipment and vehicles can switch from fossil fuels to electricity, and ports can host infrastructure for producing new e-fuels. Together, these changes can substantially increase electricity demand and create new challenges for both ports and the grids that supply them.

D5 provides tools for anticipating these impacts and supporting better infrastructure decisions. It introduces a new three-phase typology of port electrification. By providing a clearer and more consistent way of describing different stages of electrification, the framework can help researchers and practitioners compare transition pathways and better assess what infrastructure will be required. The report also examines different approaches for modelling future port and shipping systems. It identifies agent-based modelling as particularly promising. 

From Models to Real Ports

For the Danube Inland Navigation System, the researchers developed a framework for determining where charging infrastructure for battery-electric vessels could be located and how much electricity it would require. The case study demonstrates that where and how charging infrastructure is deployed can be a decisive factor in whether shipping electrification is feasible.

A second tool focuses on shore power — supplying ships with electricity from land while they are in port. Using real-world vessel-call data from the Port of Valencia, the researchers created a detailed picture of when, where, and how much electricity different vessels would require.

Preparing Ports for the Energy Transition

The findings of D5 underline an important message for the port energy transition: electrification is not simply a matter of replacing fossil-fuel technologies with electric ones. New charging points, shore power, electric transport, and e-fuel production all interact with infrastructure and electricity networks that have physical and economic limits.

Understanding those interactions before major investments are made can help ports identify bottlenecks, compare infrastructure options, reduce unnecessary costs, and prepare electricity grids for future demand.

Read the report here.

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