Every week, cruise ships arrive at ports
like this one in Vancouver.
These massive 'hotels of the sea'-which can carry up
to 4,000 people-boast nearly every kind of amenity
you might imagine...
As well as sophisticated seafaring equipment-
all of which require electrical power.
That power is generated by the ship's diesel engines...
Meaning cruise liners have to run their engines around the
clock while in port-creating pollution and greenhouse gas
emissions, and costing cruise operators huge amounts of fuel.
The ship is still working.
We still have full AC.
The galleys are still working to prepare food, elevators.
All the lights are on.
So we are taking about 10-and-a-half
megawatts per hour.
A rough calculation will tell you that an average household
in North America will take about 10 to 11 months
to use the same power that we use in one hour.
Shore power allows ships to shut down their engines
and plug into a city's electrical grid when docked,
using clean hydroelectricity to run their onboard services.
Port Metro Vancouver is home to one of only
a few shore power equipped ports in the World.
And because of British Columbia's clean,
mostly hydro generated power, Vancouver is an ideal Port
to provide Marine Shore Power.
The cruise ships that call here regularly,
when they arrive here in the morning and the ships tie up,
they're here for the whole day basically.
And while they're along side, these are like small cities
that are operating.
And if we can get those ships to turn their engines off,
and connect to the electrical grid,
we can completely eliminate the air borne emissions
that are associated with those ships generating their power.
Marine shore power draws from landside transformers.
After converting the power from city voltage
to a voltage appropriate for the ship's functions,
the electricity is conducted through four three-and-a-half
inch diameter flexible electrical cables.
Using shore power cuts marine diesel consumption
by about 35 tonnes per ship over the course
of the summer cruise season.
In development since 2005, this project required
significant planning and problem solving to make
everything work-for the Port, the cruise lines
and the people of Vancouver.
To start, the ships draw a significant electrical load
from the grid, and BC Hydro needed to ensure the city's
own power supply would remain stable.
The cruise lines wanted to connect two different ships
to the Canada Place terminal.
With that, each of the ships could be
up to 14 megawatts of load.
We were able to connect each of the two different terminals
because of redundant circuits that were planned
for the downtown core.
Because the customer was willing to be interrupted
because they have their own on-ship generation,
we were able to then connect into the stand by loads.
We had to run cable support structure, cable ducting,
to bring the cables from the service entrance to the
substation locations, and then from the substation locations
we had to run the cable in sealed conduits under the
dock, to the dock face.
At the dock face then we installed what we call jibs,
which is a form of crane that has a drum suspended on it so
that the cable can actually be suspended over the water and
also we have to allow for the 16-foot tides we have here.
So we had to have a hydraulic hoist so that the cables
could move up and down with the tide.
A ship like this, given the technology that we have today,
it could cost up to one-and-a-half million dollars
basically per vessel, and this is not including anything
that is on shore side.
This is just purely vessel modification that we have
to undertake in order to connect to shore power.
The project brought together a number of important partners,
with funding provided by the BC Ministry of Transportation
and Infrastructure, Transport Canada,
Western Economic Diversification Canada,
Port Metro Vancouver and the cruise lines themselves.
This program and this project provides an excellent
opportunity for the Government of Canada to show leadership
in bringing together partners from the private sector,
the public sector and the marine shipping industry
to harness clean technologies that can have
both environmental and economic benefits.
The Port of Vancouver was an ideal candidate.
They had a solid business case;
they had strong partnerships in the public and private
sector, and a real willingness to measure
the results and share that information with Canadians,
so that we could all benefit from their experience
with this new technology.
Marine Shore Power is a promising clean technology,
and the program is an important collaboration
between the Government of Canada and public and private
sector partners that will give Canadian ports the knowledge
and the technology they will need to become global leaders
in marine shore power.
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure
is really proud of being part of this project,
and a partner amongst all the companies and agencies that
are involved in this project.
Certainly promising to be...
to improve the air quality in the lower mainland for people,
and also reaching our target by reducing the green house
gases by one-third by the year 2020.
So we're well on our way to getting to that target.
The shore power installation here
was the third of its kind in the entire world.
In 2010, 58 shore power equipped cruise ships docketed
at Port Metro Vancouver.
Those ships represented 34% of all cruise ships that docked
at the Port that year.
This saved an estimated 475 tonnes of fuel.
And 1,521 tonnes of CO2 equivalent were reduced.
But the benefits of shore power
aren't just environmental...
This project is just a great example of how you can
actually develop the economy and protect the environment
at the same time.
Each cruise ship that stops here in Vancouver contributes
something between a million and two million dollars to the
local economy in the form of business for the merchants
that are located near the port,
and in terms of business for the suppliers of goods
and services that a cruise ship needs when it's at dock.
For all of those of us who are interested in the success of
Western Canada, this project is a really important step.
The environment is the first beneficiary of this process
because once we are in full-shore power,
we shut down the engine and we basically have zero emissions.
So we don't have CO2, NOx, SOx - everything is off.
We are running on full, clean power coming from shore.
The Marine Shore Power Program at Port Metro Vancouver
is setting a leading example for cruise operators
and other ports.
Showing how an investment in innovation can cut fuel
consumption, reduce emissions and improve environmental
performance in all sectors of the marine industry-not
only cruise lines but all ocean-going traffic.
Well the next step is to work with the Port of Prince Rupert
on a similar demonstration of shore
power for container ships.
And we'll be sharing the lessons learned from that
project, as well as the cruise ship project in Vancouver,
with ports in Canada and around the world.