Optimal Configuration and Sizing of Seaport Microgrids including Renewable Energy and Cold Ironing—The Port of Aalborg Case Study

Microgrids are among the promising green transition technologies that will provide enor-mous benefits to the seaports to manage major concerns over energy crises, environmental challenges, and economic issues. However, creating a good design for the seaport microgrid is a challenging task, considering different objectives, constraints, and uncertainties involved. To ensure the optimal operation of the system, determining the right microgrid configuration and component size at minimum cost is a vital decision at the design stage. This paper aims to design a hybrid system for a seaport microgrid with optimally sized components. The selected case study is the Port of Aalborg, Denmark. The proposed grid-connected structure consists of renewable energy sources (photovoltaic system and wind turbines), an energy storage system, and cold ironing facilities. The seaport architecture is then optimized by utilizing HOMER to meet the maximum load demand by considering important parameters such as solar global horizontal irradiance, temperature, and wind resources. Finally, the best configuration is analyzed in terms of economic feasibility, energy reliability, and environmental impacts.