Hamburg celebrates the ‘Topping Out’ of its first Shore Power Station for Cruise Ships

smartPORT Hamburg has reached another milestone in making Hamburg one of the most attractive and environmentally friendly cruise locations in Europe. At the beginning of November the Hamburg Port Authority held a ceremony to celebrate the 'topping out' of the port’s first shore power station at the cruise terminal in Altona. In future cruise liners can turn off almost all their engines while berthing there and rely on shoreside power. The new facility will help to significantly lower the emission of air pollutants such as nitrogen oxide, sulphur oxide, fine particulate matter and carbon dioxide.

A converter substation, consisting of four transformers and one voltage transformer, will convert the 10 kV, 50 Hz electricity supplied from the electrical grid to 11 kV, 60 Hz electricity, the voltage/frequency required by cruise ships. The shore power station will be powered by electrical energy produced from renewable sources. Upon its completion in the summer of 2015, Hamburg will be the first port in Europe to operate a permanent shore power station of this size and deploy power barges.

In October this year Hamburg’s first LNG barge started to offer external, eco-friendly electrical power to cruise vessels. The barge is equipped with five electricity-producing generators that are powered by clean liquefied natural gas (LNG).