The Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility inaugurated this Wednesday at the Bay of Cádiz Port the first OPS (On-Shore Power Supply) connection for cruise ships of the Spanish state port system, a pioneering installation located at the Alfonso XIII Dock that allows cruise ships to connect to the onshore electricity grid and turn off their auxiliary engines while docked, thereby reducing pollutant emissions and noise. The event was attended by the President of Ports of the State, Gustavo Santana, among other authorities.
The OPS system at the Port of Cádiz, developed alongside Endesa, has involved an investment of 1.5 million euros from the Port Authority and 6.75 million euros from the electric company, of which 2.7 million euros are financed by NextGeneration funds from the European Union. The installation is expected to meet an estimated demand of 8.62 GWh in its first year of operation, which will translate to a reduction of approximately 5,000 tons of CO₂ per year, equivalent to the emissions generated by 2,800 vehicles driving for a year.
The inauguration of the charging point in Cádiz constitutes the first visible step of a national project that has a projected public investment of more than 950 million euros by 2030, according to figures collected in the business plans agreed upon between Ports of the State and the port authorities. The goal is to comply with the requirements of the European Regulation AFIR, which establishes that ports must supply electricity to container ships, cruise ships, and ferries (ro-pax) before the decade ends.
In this context, the Port of Algeciras is emerging as the Spanish port infrastructure with the most ambitious OPS installation deployment in the entire state system. The Port Authority of the Bay of Algeciras (APBA) currently has a set of projects under execution that cover practically all its terminals and that will add a score of electric supply points distributed throughout its docks.
Specifically, the passenger terminal at the Galera dock will have two connection points for ferries. The terminal for passengers and roll-on/roll-off cargo at the Príncipe Felipe dock will have three OPS connection points for ro-ro and ro-pax ships, with the capacity to simultaneously service two vessels. The passenger terminal at the Isla Verde Interior dock will incorporate four supply points for the fast-ferries that operate on the Strait lines. The container terminal operated by APM Terminals at the Juan Carlos I dock will have four OPS supply points, while the TTI terminal at the Isla Verde Exterior dock will have three points. These facilities will be complemented by two connection points for ro-ro and ro-pax ships and two for container ships planned at the multi-purpose terminal of the North dock. Additionally, the passenger terminal at the port of Tarifa, also dependent on the APBA, will incorporate four connection points for ferries with simultaneous operation capacity.
The scale of the deployment planned in Algeciras responds to the characteristics of the port, which operates as one of the largest container transshipment hubs in the Mediterranean and as the main maritime connection point between Spain and North Africa through the Strait of Gibraltar. The volume of ships that dock daily at its docks—container ships from the major global shipping companies, passenger ferries, and roll-on/roll-off cargo ships—creates an electric supply demand at the dock that requires an OPS infrastructure appropriately sized to its operational scale.
The investment of 92 million euros that the APBA has committed to OPS projects for the electrification of the docks in Algeciras and Tarifa, as recently announced by its president, Gerardo Landaluce, at the Silk Road Maritime Forum held in Madrid, makes the Port of Algeciras the one allocating the largest volume of resources to this technology within the Spanish port system.
To gauge the challenge posed by the electrification of the entire port system, Ports of the State has indicated that in 2024 state ports had an installed electricity power of 200 MW with an annual consumption of 1 TWh. To meet the European objective by 2030, it is estimated that an additional power of over 1 GW will be required to accommodate a total projected consumption exceeding 2 TWh, which implies doubling the current electrical capacity of the port facilities.
To facilitate this deployment, Ports of the State has coordinated the integration of power requirements in the planning of the national electricity grid, in collaboration with the General Directorate of Energy Policy and Mines, the Electric Grid, and the distribution companies. Likewise, the recently approved Sustainable Mobility Law prioritizes the energy needs of port facilities, and the new electricity supply, marketing, and aggregation regulation introduces a scheme that allows for the temporary modification of contracted power, adapting the contracts to the consumption patterns of activities like OPS, which show high seasonal and daily variability.
In addition to the point inaugurated in Cádiz, OPS facilities are already operational in Spain at the port of Palma de Mallorca, with two ferry connections at the Peraires Dock, and at the port of Barcelona, which has three supply points at the BEST container terminal at the Prat dock—the first in the Mediterranean to offer this connection—and two points at the passenger and roll-on/roll-off terminal at the Sant Bertrán dock, operated by Trasmed-Grimaldi.
Along with the operational facilities and those being implemented in Algeciras, there are projects under execution at the ports of Alicante, Bilbao, Pasaia, Valencia, Vigo, and several ports in the Balearic Islands, in addition to the MSC cruise terminal at the Adossat dock in Barcelona. Practically all ports in the state system already have projects in some of the necessary development phases to complete the OPS deployment before 2030.