Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - LoCOPS (Low Cost Onshore Power Supply)

Teaser

PowerCon aims to pursue a major market opportunity by demonstrating and further commercializing a competitive Onshore Power Supply (OPS), to provide electricity for large sea-going vessels when at quayside in port. The OPS system not only reduces the consumption of fuel and...

Summary

PowerCon aims to pursue a major market opportunity by demonstrating and further commercializing a competitive Onshore Power Supply (OPS), to provide electricity for large sea-going vessels when at quayside in port. The OPS system not only reduces the consumption of fuel and the associated air pollution but also eliminates acoustic noise and vibrations from the running engines.

The structures behind the unfavourable operational and capital expenses have been hindering the deployment of OPS. Today’s high operational expenses are due to a tax disadvantage on shore side electricity compared with tax-free bunkerfuel available for ships. Because of this, the European Commission in 2007 opened up for exemptions from energy taxes for onshore power and some European countries (e.g. Denmark, Sweden and Germany) can now provide shore side electricity at reduced rate. The high capital expenses are seen as a consequence of the low competition and relatively few capable suppliers on the market causing a high bargaining power of the suppliers.

Comparable trends have been seen within the wind power segment in the past where, over time, the total cost of wind turbines has been lowered with great success to compete with fossil fuels. Danish SME PowerCon (PC) have for the last 7 years been part of this success, by adding significant savings into the wind power industry with competitive power solutions. More specifically, we have developed and are successfully commercializing a frequency converter for wind turbines, which is up to 50% cheaper than competing solutions. Now, we aim at bringing the same savings for the maritime sector by introducing a low cost OPS for ships, based on the technology we developed for wind turbines.

In LoCOPS Ph 2 project, we aim to demonstrate our technology in operational environment (at the Port of Kristiansand i Norway, to prove that our technology will result in a positive business case for ports, and thereby step into a very promising market for PowerCon.

Work performed

Many Cruise ships spend up-to 40 percent of their operational life in a port. Connecting the Cruise ships to Shore Power is the only solution that completely eliminates the air pollution and acoustic noise or vibrations from the running engines

In LoCOPS, we have demonstrated our innovative technology in an operational environment at the port of Kristiansand in Norway, to prove that our technology will result in a positive business and environmental opportunity for ports and thereby create a successfully market launch for future Onshore Power products.

The project has completed 6 WP´s
WP 1, Project management
WP 2, Requirements and Specifications
WP 3, Engineering and design finalisation
WP 4, Assembly, factory tests and Installation
WP 5, Demonstration of the technology by the end-user
WP 6, Business model, Dissemination and Exploitation

The result is a very competitive system, both in terms of the technical performance but also the commercial achievements.
In parallel the project has identified possible partners, customers, relevant stakeholders etc. for commercialization of LoCOPS in other ports.

The achieved unique features:
• Low cost, very competitive prices
• High efficiency, means higher percentage of the electricity is delivered to the ship and less wasted (heat loss) in the system
• Very robust and state of the art solutions due to the severe usage of the same components in wind turbines.
• Modulated system for future upgrades
• Compact design for limited space requirements
• Built according to IEC 80005-1,2

The results and the project has several times been in both Danish and Norwegian national television, and several other media\'s, creating awareness for European ports and the people living in the nearby cities.

The future is fossil free and one of the most promising alternatives is the use of electricity produced in a eco-friendly manner using renewable sources.
Shore Power and the LoCOPS project is a important step in this direction and a promising solution to make the Cruise industry more environmentally sustainable.

Final results

This innovation project will use PowerCon competitive edge from a highly competitive segment and introduce it in a new emerging segment, matching the needs from the relevant stakeholders. So far, the combination of high CAPEX and OPEX of existing solutions undermines the port’s business case in deploying OPS. However, the recent developments in tax exemption gives the port and/or cruise ships an opportunity for a positive gross margin on shore side electricity. Thus, with a sufficiently high consumption as in cruise ships and sufficiently low cost OPS, a business case will emerge. PowerCon’s innovative solution will diversify from other systems by having a price competitive solution, which will enable an overall improved business case ensuring the return of investment for more ports and cities. This fact will enhance the likelihood of the decision to invest in OPS. The main novelties of the LoCOPS system are:

1- Very compact design. This new design will allow the system to be very compact, which will shorten the power path
and thereby the related conduction loss. So far, PowerCon has achieved a design with a power density of 1MVA per
m3 for the converter core compared with the industry standard of no more than 0.25 to 0.5MVA per m3. The high
power density is not only saving space and weight; it also reduces the cost since it requires less material per MVA converter.

2- Optimized control system. The energy efficient control system is adding to the savings not only in the operational
use but also related to the required cooling system keeping the power electronics at an optimal temperature. Less heat
loss requires less flow and power consumptions for pumps etc. and in general allows the cooling system to be less
complicated and thereby, also cheaper eliminating the need for a two-stage compressor system and deionization
systems.

3- Modularized for easy dimensioning. The easy assembly and flexible construction creates short installation time and the possibility of adding modules as the demand for power or number of ships connected at the same time increases in the ports.

The whole structure of the system is benefiting from a lower weight and size, thereby minimizing requirements for the
overall footprint and the use of construction materials. Based on our technology, we can offer a solution at significant lower price than the solutions available in the market.

Without knowing the detailed cost structure of competing OPS solutions, we know that
• The cost of PowerCon’s innovative converter technology is 30% lower than our competitors in the Wind Energy sector;
• The converter technology cost in the marine sector seems to be higher than the energy sector

Website & more info

More info: http://www.locops.eu.