Long Beach lands $50M for zero emissions equipment

Long Beach has announced it is in line for another grant to fund zero emissions equipment, this time from the California Air Resources Board. “The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has preliminarily awarded the grant for the Sustainable Terminals Accelerating Regional Transformation (START) Project. The START Project will demonstrate nearly 100 pieces of zero-emissions terminal equipment and trucks at three California seaports, develop a near-zero emissions tugboat, deploy two of the cleanest ships to ever to call the West Coast, and advance workforce development programs to support sustainable goods movement”.

If approved the port would receive $50M to help fund equipment including 33 zero-emissions yard tractors and one top handler at Pier C (Operated by SSA Terminals), five electric trucks at Shippers Transport, two charging outlets at the Clean Trucks Program Center, and two Matson container ships with Tier 3 engines, and Harley Marine electric-drive tugboats. The Matson vessels with Tier 3 engines will be the cleanest container ships to call the West Coast, the port noted.

“The Board of Harbor Commissioners envision a zero-emissions future in Long Beach,” said Board President Tracy Egoscue. “This project accelerates the commercialization for the technology we need to get there, incorporating seaports, terminal operators, equipment manufacturers, schools and universities from all around the state. The Harbor Commission is very thankful to the California Air Resources Board for seeing the potential in this project.”

“The prominent role the Port of Long Beach plays in the national economy puts us in the unique position to lead large sustainability efforts such as this that would not be possible elsewhere,” said Port of Long Beach Executive Director Mario Cordero. “This will help get us to the green future that we all know is necessary if we want to continue to grow our business, and it’s the right thing to do for our communities.”

The sustainable supply chain project will be completed by June 2021 at a total cost of $102M, including the CARB Grant and $52M in matching funds from private and public partners. Its scope is to demonstrate a “full/near zero emissions supply chain”.

While Long Beach is home to a fully electric terminal at the automated LBCT facility, the focus is on ‘conventional’ equipment. “In operation, this means a ship — one of the cleanest in the world — would be brought to SSA Marine Pier C by an electric-drive tugboat, and then plug into shore power rather than run the vessel’s engines for power needs while docked. Then, the cargo containers on the ship would be handled by zero-emissions, battery-electric yard tractors and top handler cargo-handling equipment before being transported on a zero-emissions electric truck to Shippers Transport, an off-dock container yard.”

Project partners include the ports of Oakland and Stockton, SSA Marine, Matson Navigation Co., Shippers Transport, the Long Beach Unified School District and Long Beach City College.