Ports Electrify: 28% of New Gantry Cranes Are Battery-Powered

Those dynamics are producing real-world results. At Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority, India's second-biggest container terminal near Mumbai, 90% of the truck fleet will be electric by the end of this year. The Port of Long Beach near Los Angeles has electrified a fifth of its cargo-handling equipment. Tuas, the massive terminal under construction in Singapore and set to be the world's largest when completed in 2040, is being designed almost entirely around grid and battery power.

The shift extends beyond cranes and trucks. Vessels used to burn their own fuel while docked, using auxiliary engines that produced heavy emissions. Now most Chinese and European container and cruise ports provide shore electricity through thick cables. Even tugboats are switching. An electric tug that began operating in Auckland in 2022 costs half as much to run as a diesel version. Singapore put its first electric tugs into service earlier this year.

Getting fossil fuels out of ships' main engines will be the hardest part, though small battery-powered container ships are already entering service. Electrifying shore-based operations is low-hanging fruit. Just 25 harbors handle about half of all container trade, and there are only about 1,000 such ports on the planet, the column noted. The strides they are making offer a test-bed for how battery-powered machinery could transform the global trucking and logistics industry, which accounts for roughly 8% of the world's emissions. Under our noses, a whole industrial ecosystem is quietly switching to clean power.