Valencia awards shore power contracts

The Port of Valencia (APV) has awarded contracts worth €11.1M to Sampol Ingeniería y Obras SA to install electrical connections at the Transersval de Costa dock, which hosts the MSC container terminal.

This is a turnkey contract, covering design, engineering and construction, and maintenance of the facilities for a set period after commissioning.

The first three months will be used for basic design work, followed by another three months for APV to review and approve the project. This phase is budgeted at €121,000.

Construction work (sub-station, transformers, frequency converters, MV protection cells, etc) is budgeted at €10.93M and this phase is set to last 15 months.

Finally, facility maintenance work will be carried out for 36 months at a cost of around €48,000.

No details of the sub-contractors for cable management systems and plugs and connectors on the dock to “hook up” to MSC’s container ships are available at this juncture.

Onshore power supply (OPS) or “cold ironing” is a key part of APV’s decarbonisation strategy, in line with Spanish and EU policy.

It is not clear how many of MSC’s container vessels regularly calling Valencia are equipped to receive shore power, but the number is expected to grow over time.

It is not known whether APV has specific commitments from MSC, its biggest container customer, to use shore power on ships equipped to receive it, or whether this is a commercial decision for MSC, based on the price for using the grid compared to auxiliary engine fuel.