In recent years the city of Nijmegen has installed onshore power supply facilities on its public quays for both river cruise vessels and cargo ships. The city wants to expand the OPS facilities to the privately owned quays in the industrial port. Nijmegen is the largest Dutch inland port apart from the seaports.
With the support of CLINSH, the city started a procurement for cost-effective OPS solutions among the waterfront companies in the “Kanaalhavens” industrial port. This started with an information meeting hosted by the port area’s business association. Several OPS suppliers presented their case to 10 Kanaalhavens companies The procurement started November 16th and closes December 7th; for the results see the next CLINSH newsletter.
Initially the city had intended to pilot mobile OPS within CLINSH. At the start of CLINSH in 2016 mobile OPS (i.e. shore power from a clean fuel powered generator) was regarded as an alternative for grid-connected OPS. Practical information gathered while preparing a pilot project showed that this is not the case, the main reason being the high operational costs for fuel and logistics.
Analysis of the OPS business case in the beginning of CLINSH showed that CAPEX is very dominant. There is a need for cheaper solutions for grid-connected OPS, that could be (socio-) economically attractive to port authorities. It was therefore decided that the CLINSH budget is allocated to support piloting of low-CAPEX grid-connected OPS designs, particularly on private quays.