Port Saint John’s Ambitious Net-Zero Plan
SAINT JOHN — Port Saint John is looking towards a greener future with a number of different initiatives underway to reduce its carbon footprint.
Last month’s federal budget offered $165 million over seven years for ports across the country to become more environmentally sustainable by offering shore power to visiting ships via the Green Shipping Corridor commitment. The GSC commitment is part of the Clydebank Declaration that Canada joined at COP 26 in 2021.
Shore power technology allows ships to turn off high-emission, diesel-powered auxiliary engines while in port by plugging into more environmentally friendly electrical power.
Port Saint John’s vice president of engagement and sustainability, Paula Copeland, says the port is in the process of evaluating a baseline of all its emissions right now but that preliminary information points to ship idling being “the largest chunk of emissions” that the port can contribute to reducing. The port welcomes 1,000 ships per year.
“We are pursuing green energy and decarbonization projects,” says Copeland. “One of the components of that would be shore power, but right now we’re still in the scoping phase. The government hasn’t come out with the details on this fund fully yet.”
“Most ports in Canada that that don’t have shore power that can benefit from getting it. We will be looking at applying [to the Green Shipping Corridor funding].”
Shore power works by connecting ships to an electricity supply using High Voltage Shore Connection Systems that transfer the power from land, often from a standalone plant consisting of transformer station and cable feed system with a mobile transfer device to the ship.
The technology has been in use in Canada at the Port of Vancouver since 2009, when it started with cruise ships. It has since expanded to all ship traffic entering the port saving an estimated 30,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
Several ports in B.C., including BC Ferry Services, as well as Halifax and Montreal, which took advantage of the government’s initial Shore Power Technology for Ports program in 2020, already have or are in the process of getting shore power.
One of the challenges for the port will be in acquiring the equipment to facilitate shore power, as like many other net-zero initiatives there’s a worldwide push to adopt these new technologies by 2050.
“Equipment for shore power is a very specialized equipment. There’s only a few suppliers in the world that do it and Europe is ahead of us in the implementation,” Copeland says.
“It’s about getting those particular devices that we need in a timely manner, but everybody’s racing to the same deadline. So that is going to create a bit of a bit of a challenge for the manufacturers.”
Copeland says the plan will be to implement the system at both the cruise and container terminals.
“For wind energy, we have purchased renewable energy credits from the Burchill Wind Project,” Copeland says. The credits will go towards all of its corporate buildings as well as the terminals that the port operates.
The port is also in the process of transforming its equipment, including trucks and vehicles that port personnel use, to an electric fleet. The port is in the process of installing charging stations for those vehicles.
Solar feasibility of buildings is another initiative the port is looking at to help hit its net-zero targets.
“We’re also looking at our impacts on the perimeter of the port as it connects where community and business border with us,” Copeland says. “The transition zones between our land and where people reside or work.”
“This year, we’re doing a big improvement project down around Long Wharf Slip, we’re looking at a 10-to-15-year plan in cooperation with the city of Saint John to improve the what we call a buffer zone between our industrial work and the port community, the community around us.”
This project will involve improved drainage around the port, with increased attention to how the port interacts and interfaces with the communities that surround it.
Copeland says that moving towards a greener future is important for the long-term viability of the port, and the city.
“We’ve been trending towards these activities and improvements for a while … and have been making incremental changes. But I would say that we really ramped up in the last 18 months,” she says.
“This is the way globally that industry is going. In order to be sustainable as a shipping industry collectively we all have to do something. The ports are doing what they can, the shipping lines are doing what they can and together those actions are what is going to create those green corridors.”
“It will make the environment better globally, as well as in Saint John.”
Alex Graham is a Huddle reporter in Saint John. Send her your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].