A cogeneration power plant to integrate cold ironing and district heating and cooling

As in almost all the major maritime cities, Ancona harbour is very close to the urban area and hosts a multi-purpose port harbouring cruise boats, passenger ferries, commercial liners, and fishing boats. All the ships emit rather high amounts of airborne pollutants including PM10, a toxic mixture of low-diameter solid particles and liquid droplets suspended in the air. A consistent part of the airborne pollutants is due to the vessels’ ‘hotelling’, i.e. their staying within the port. A significant reduction of pollutants emitted by ship engines during their hotelling in harbours can be achieved by applying a ground electrification of the docks to provide the electricity usually produced by the polluting engines of the ships. To check the technical and economic viability of such a technology we have designed a Trigeneration power plant (i.e. a CCHP or Combined Cooling, Heat and Power plant) to be located within Ancona Port. The CCHP plant would be able to provide most of the electricity required during the hoteling of bigger cruisers and ferries and the district heating and/or cooling of most of the buildings nearby. The plant was optimized to achieve the best energy performance by reducing the waste heat/ cool and by tuning the electrical loads to those of ships.