Port of Baltimore – Justin Krupa – 2018

Goals

Port of Baltimore (POB) plays a significant role in environmental stewardship efforts within the Greater Baltimore Area. Based on a study focused on converting Chesapeake Bay-water algae to energy, The Maryland Port Administration had secured and was committed to using fuel cell (FC) technology. EDF Climate Corps fellow Justin Krupa was enlisted to investigate cost-effective deployment scenarios for onsite renewable energy generation using this technology in both current and future maritime FC power systems.

Solutions

Krupa performed an energy audit on facilities across the building portfolio of POB’s largest public marine terminal. He also interviewed facilities staff and researched current FC market technology and trends. Based on the information gathered, he outlined a systems-based approach for FC implementation, which would optimize design and overcome typically prohibitive capital costs.

Krupa selected solid oxide FC technology for its ability to use existing energy resource distribution infrastructure. He cited that small-scale power plants could be deployed to offset building energy use with reasonable payback periods at about half of system lifetime. This would also reduce local GHG emissions attributed to powering the targeted facilities by up to 75%.

Potential Impact

There is huge potential for savings and the fuel cell deployments where feasible provides additional resiliency. Over its lifetime, a FC system installed onsite at POB could save 61 million kilowatt hours of electricity use and 30,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. If implemented, the system would serve as an example of the technology as a viable solution for powering a broad range of energy loads. This could reduce investment risk for future systems in the region. It would also facilitate grid modernization efforts regarding end-use electrification and distributed power generation, which are important components of an evolution, not revolution, to a smart power grid.