The Northwest Seaport Alliance (NWSA) has completed installation of a shore power system at Husky Terminal in Tacoma, US.
On June 15, the terminal welcomed Hapag-Lloyd’s Kuala Lumpur Express as its inaugural shore power plug-in.
The inaugural plug-in makes Husky Terminal the second international cargo terminal in Washington State to be shore power capable, following the completion of Terminal 5’s system in 2023.
The NWSA is guided by the Northwest Ports Clean Air Strategy, a multi-port commitment to collectively improve regional air quality and reduce GHG emissions. In addition to the overarching goal to eliminate all maritime emissions by 2050 or sooner, the NWSA has the interim goal of installing shore power at all international terminals by 2030.
The next terminals to be equipped with this infrastructure will be Terminal 18 in Seattle and Washington United Terminal in Tacoma. TOTE, a domestic terminal in Tacoma, has been shore power capable since 2010.
The Husky Terminal project received direct support from the Washington State Legislature through a grant award from the VW Settlement Agreement Funds. Funding support also came from the EPA’s Diesel Emission Reduction Act (DERA) and the Trans-Alta Coal Transition grant programs. Between the three grants this project benefited from just over $3 million in state and federal funds.
More than half of the vessels that now call the NWSA are shore power capable, with carriers continuing to transition their fleets to benefit from these investments in port infrastructure.