Input Stories

Power surges and brownouts at the Port of Los Angeles are knocking critical cargo equipment offline with increasing frequency, jeopardizing the port’s move to renewables (The Wall Street Journal, subscription).

What’s going on: Terminal operators at the container port, the busiest in the Western Hemisphere, “are asking how the port expects to achieve a mandate to phase out diesel-powered machinery by 2030 when today’s power supply is so unreliable.”

• “Their frustrations highlight the gap in energy infrastructure that complicates moves toward zero-emission technologies even as companies invest big sums in the transition.”
• There have been at least nine power-related outages at the port so far this year, affecting one or more terminals.
• The terminals are leased to private companies by the port and get power from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. 

Why it’s problematic: While the “dips and surges” in power don’t always last long, they cause cranes to reset, halting the cargo flow from ships to terminals.

• It’s not just cranes, either; the automated gates that take in and deliver boxes and the computer systems that control container locations are also affected, necessitating recalibration and sometimes replacement of parts.
• “I haven’t seen anything that would convince me that there is a plan to support the port infrastructure in time to meet the 2030 mandate,” one terminal executive told the Journal on the condition of anonymity.

Help on the way? “LADWP is working on a $500 million project to bring extra power to the port using underground lines, which should improve reliability.” It’s set for completion in 2029.

Power required: While there are fewer such problems at the nearby Port of Long Beach, which gets its power from Southern California Edison, grid reliability will become increasingly important there, too, because it “runs mostly on electricity and is heavily automated, [with] battery backup systems that plug short gaps in power.”

Our view: “Increasingly shaky grid reliability will only get worse under the EPA’s recent greenhouse gas emissions rules for power plants, which are wholly unachievable without permitting reform for energy infrastructure projects,” said NAM Director of Energy and Resources Policy Michael Davin.

• “We need comprehensive changes now to our system to preserve existing generation and get new energy projects up and running.”