The proportion of visiting ships that plug into the electric grid at the Port of Oakland instead of idling their fossil fuel-powered engines at the dock rose from 85% in 2023 to 94% in the first half of 2024, the port said today.
That trend has already led to cleaner air in the neighborhood, since more ships can turn off their diesel engines, resulting in near-zero vessel emissions while at berth, port leaders said.
“Shore power is the single most effective way to reduce vessel emissions when a ship is in port,” Port of Oakland Environmental Programs and Planning Director Colleen Liang said in a release. “We appreciate the ship owners retrofitting their vessels for shore power. We also thank the terminal operators for coordinating and providing labor to physically plug in the ships that call Oakland.”
To extend its electric capabilities further in the future, the port plans to install mobile shore power outlets, becoming the first port in the nation to do so. That approach is important because it allow vessels greater flexibility to plug in at dock, since some ships cannot easily align with the existing stationary plugs to make the connection.
