The Ways Ahead

Abstract

To illustrate the future maritime grids, we re-draw Fig. 4.1 here and give a more detailed illustration for future maritime grids. The following Fig. 9.1 is renamed as "future maritime grids".In Fig. 9.1, the main types of maritime grids including harbor city grid (2), seaport microgrids (4), offshore platforms (10), shipboard microgrids (12), offshore wind farms ( 14), island microgrid (15).In the first place, harbor city grid (2) is the core and acts as the main grid for the rest of maritime grids. The main functions include receiving the land-based renewable generation (1), supplying the industrial facilities (9), providing power to seaport microgrids (4), and operating two-way ferries (12) to island microgrid (15). The former four are energy connections and the fifth is a transportation connection.Then seaport microgrid (4) is the network within a seaport, and this microgrid receives electricity from the harbor city grid (2) and providing raw materials to the industrial facilities (9). The seaport microgrid also receives energy from the seaport renewable (6). Seaport provides berth positions to the cargo ships (16), and handling the cargos by the port cranes (13). The cargos are then lifting by the transferring vehicles (5) to the stackyard (8), and the cold-chain containers are stored in the reefer area (7). Besides, seaport microgrid provides cold-ironing power to the shipboard microgrid (12).The offshore platforms (10) include oil drilling platforms or other construction ships. They produce raw materials and transmit them to the industrial facilities (9) or island (15) by the oil pipes or other networks. The raw materials can be also transported by cargo ships (16).The shipboard microgrid (12) is the network installed in cargo ships (16), offshore support vessels (3), and other ships. It receives the cold-ironing power from the seaport microgrid (4), and it periodically sails between seaport and islands (15) or other places to transfer cargos.