Port of Bilbao to provide green shoreside power

The BilbOPS project will deploy onshore power supply (OPS) technology or supply of electricity on land, also known as cold ironing.

The project will allow the Port of Bilbao to make “a significant qualitative leap” in the Atlantic Europe to achieve the European Union’s “FIT for 55” objectives.

Specifically, the port is expected to reduce greenhouse gases by 40% and, with this project and other complementary measures, the port authority hopes to achieve the 55% emission reduction target established by the European Union for 2030.

BilbOPS is divided into several phases. The port authority will equip seven docks where regular lines dock — containers, RoRo, RoPax, cruise ships and the new A5 dock — with the installations necessary to supply electricity to ships during their stay in port.

Given that OPS facilities do not currently have standardised or approved patterns, and each ship requires a different power or has developed different technology to connect to the dock (on land or on ship), a versatile system will be chosen that can provide from 1 MW to 12 MW to be able to serve any type of vessel regardless of its length, gross tonnage, design, or traffic.

The repowering of all the docks will be carried out between 2022 and 2023.

In a later phase, the HIDROVAN project will be developed, a mobile floating platform that will generate electricity from H2, in collaboration with Petronor, Tecnalia and Ferrovial. Its purpose is to provide the OPS service to the rest of the docks that do not have points of connection.

The energy transition plan, in addition to the electrification of the docks, will entail other associated or complementary actions such as the creation of renewable energy power plants in the port itself so that electricity has a zero-emission origin, making Bilbao a green energy hub. Three projects will generate green energy: Photovoltaic solar energy, Wave energy and Wind power.

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