Unlocking shore power in St. Lawrence and Great Lakes for cargo ships

This study investigates for the first time the emissions that a future shore power policy can eliminate in the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes region, providing precise evaluations with an improved bottom-up methodology. The review of cargo ship emission estimation methods showed that latest studies use a methodology that is not suited for evaluating real emissions at berth, but rather general emissions of the ships while at sea. Therefore, an improved method is proposed to determine the emissions specifically at berth with a modified bottom-up analysis that considers further geographical data, operating modes, berth-specific data, the new exclusion-area technique, and new cargo ship types. Also, the results of the proposed method applied in the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes showed that shore power policies can reduce up to an annual maximum of 227,061 t of carbon dioxide equivalent and 25 million dollars annually in external costs to society and governments.