Ports are increasingly recognizing the potential of energy as a revenue stream in their sustainability efforts. Balancing capital investments becomes critical as ports explore opportunities to generate revenue from energy-related initiatives. By deploying green infrastructure, such as solar panels and wind turbines, ports can generate renewable energy and sell excess power back to the grid, creating additional revenue streams. Additionally, ports can explore the concept of private wire systems, where they establish partnerships with nearby businesses, hotels, industrial parks, electric vehicle charging hubs, and green hydrogen facilities to supply them with clean energy on-site or near-site. This not only provides a reliable customer base but also strengthens the port's sustainability credentials and contributes to the local green economy.

Ports are advised to consider developing an energy strategy, to help plan energy costs and revenues management. This includes energy demand modeling for all operations, scoping and assessing options for demand management, on-site electricity generation, storage and networks and future fuel infrastructure. Ports have complex sites and planning for location and use of assets is fundamental, as is monitoring the operational data through digital tools.

Short-term steps to transform energy in a revenue stream:

1. Monitor renewable energy infrastructure
  • Accurate predictions of output vs. demand
  • Portfolio optimization using data to trigger an investigation if there is a discrepancy between the forecast and the actual output
  • Increase productivity by identifying production defects and design defaults
2. Design and manage sustainable infrastructure systems
  • Shore power systems (cold ironing) providing electricity from shore to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from ships
  • EV charging stations to prioritize electric vehicles and improve air quality as well as implementing vehicle to grid solutions
  • Energy efficient buildings by implementing energy management systems and using energy-efficient equipment and lighting
  • Networks for energy consumption, supply and storage
3. Energy trading
  • Leverage renewable energy generation capacity, energy storage systems, or access to grid connections
  • Participation in electricity spot markets or in bilateral contracts with buyers or suppliers
4. Group connections for electricity production
  • Secure engineering support for producing electricity export and renewable electricity from hydrogen, and other alternative fuels, and storage

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Aurelia Hibbert 1.jpg

Aurelia Hibbert - Senior Energy & Decarbonisation Consultant

Aurelia is a multi-disciplinary engineer with experience across energy and built environment sectors, working on the transition to a low-carbon future.

She has experience in the Australian and UK energy markets, helping clients to unlock their greatest energy opportunities and mitigate their largest energy risks.

Aurelia has worked with major energy consumers from mines to transport hubs on their energy transformations and also supports the future plans of electricity networks.


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Sachit Prakash - Director Solutions Delivery - Univers

Sachit is responsible for solutions delivery at Univers driving Industry Solutioning, IoT Applications-Implementation, Digital Strategy and Analytics across all industrial sectors. Recently he has been focusing on Smart Grid projects orchestrating Battery Energy Storage Systems, EVs and other DERs.

Sachit has an extensive knowledge of the energy and utilities industry with a focus on power generation, power plants, power distribution and automation.



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