“Cold ironing” is the practice of a vessel at berth connecting to a source of electricity on the shore to meet their cargo handling and hotel needs.
Efforts to reduce vessel port emissions involves requiring ships to shut off diesel engines at berth to reduce the significant emissions produced by diesel engines. Power for hotel and other shiploads is supplied from shore bower (electric grids) or provided by barges or shore-side systems when power is not available at the pier.
Grid power is not always available at the quantities required at the pier, and the cost of bringing grid power to the pier can be cost prohibitive and can be upset due to regional blackouts or volatile weather conditions.
With growing social, regulatory, and financial demands for greater sustainability, ports are looking to meet their dynamic energy demands in adaptive, flexible, and scalable ways.
Cold ironing
Meeting emission targets
With the on-demand production of hydrogen on-site, e1 Marine is solving the traditional hydrogen challenge that comes with expensive and complex transport and storage requirements.
On-site hydrogen generators, using methanol as the primary feedstock, can provide as much high quality hydrogen for fuel cells as you need, when you need it. Low cost, flexible, safe and clean.
Fuel use and emissions from maritime port sources can be significant. Approximately one-third to one-half of harmful in-port emissions come from vessels auxiliary diesel engines which are run while the vessel is at berth (docked) and requires electrical power for everything from lighting to loading/discharging equipment.
While many ports are stating their desire to meet net-zero operations, not many are achieving this goal, or have a clear path to meeting it.
Hydrogen matched to fuel cells to produce on-site, on-demand electricity can provide a clear, and realistically attainable path to significant emissions reductions – at the same time as improving power reliability and independence.
Clean, Cost Effective and Reliable Shore Power
e1 Marine has developed a modularized containerized methanol/fuel cell power solution that can provide zero emission MW scale power, in a flexible mobile container for cold ironing at the pier, on a barge, or lifted onto the vessel itself.
Quiet and efficient
Fuel cells operating on hydrogen produced from e1 Marine’s methanol to hydrogen generators are a quiet, efficient, environmentally friendly, low or zero emission power source that can readily support port cold ironing applications.
Near zero greenhouse gas emissions
The e1 Marine system produces zero particulates, zero NOx, zero SOx, and less CO2 than a diesel generator. And if you use renewable methanol, the system produces near zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Other Applications
With the ability to generate your own electricity in-port you can apply this power to meeting a vast range of applications besides Cold Ironing for berthed ships. Providing electricity for ongoing port operations, BEV vehicles, drayage trucks and powering other port equipment.
When the vessels in your fleet return to refuel, our on-site generators make sure high purity fuel-grade e1 Hydrogen is ready and waiting when you need it.
On-site hydrogen generation can remove the cost and complexity of expensive electrolyzer production, and remove the issues with manufacturing, transporting, and storing compressed hydrogen.
On-Site Hydrogen Refuelling
Environmentally Friendly
Quiet and reduced emissions with no particulate matter and low CO2 emissions.
Lowest delivered cost per kilogram of hydrogen
Converts an environmentally friendly, easily handled, readily available, and hydrogen dense feedstock blend of methanol and water into fuel cell grade high-purity hydrogen at the lowest cost per kilogram delivered.
Lowest initial cost of equipment
An L-Series hydrogen generator can reduce the cost of onsite hydrogen generation by up to 70%.
Versatile Solution
Scalable hydrogen generation from 50 kg/d to 500 kg/d to allow operators to size the hydrogen produced to meet seasonal needs.
Key Advantages
For the Refuelling Station Operator
Easy Siting, Reliable Operation
The compact design with a small footprint allows for flexible installation into existing fuelling locations. Few moving parts means low maintenance and a longer lifetime.
Onsite Electricity Production
Our technology uses methanol to hydrogen generation to create on-demand electricity.
This Methanol-Hydrogen-Electricity pathway provides clean, reliable, economic electricity generation on-site to power your plant and charge battery electric vessels.
On-site generation removes reliance on local power grids to provide a secure and offers a reliable electricity source for refrigerated shipping containers and faster vessel recharge turnarounds.
Fuel cells have many advantages over diesel engines, including superior fuel efficiency and low maintenance and repair costs. Power output from the fuel cell system can range from 50kW to 2MW, with larger sizes also possible.
Methanol is a practical feedstock for the system. It is cheap to produce, available in 88 of the world’s top 100 ports, and has the potential to be 100% renewable.
The e1 Marine solution consumes 35% less energy than diesel generators and is thus cost-effective operationally even before considering any new regulations or carbon tax. It can operate on renewable methanol as it becomes available, and when combined with carbon capture (currently under development), it will be a carbon-negative solution.
The Hydrogen/Fuel Cell Advantage