Pre-feasibility analysis of a cold ironing system for cruise ships. An engineering, economic and environmental analysis

The present paper presents a pre-feasibility study for the development of a cold ironing system for cruise ships in the Italian context. The aim of the study is to understand if the development of a cold ironing system is more sustainable from the energy, environmental, and economic point of view with respect to onboard generation. To this end, a simple model is developed for the estimation of energy consumption, pollutant, and carbon emissions of a cruise ship while hotelling in port. The model allows to assess the level of consumption and emissions for both onboard generation and cold ironing. Since the parameters of the model are affected by uncertainty, a Monte Carlo analysis is also developed to understand the overall range of variability of the results. Then, a financial model is developed to estimate an appropriate tariff for the cold ironing system and to compare with the fuel cost. Results show that savings of 3ktoe/year of energy, 200 t/day of CO2, 9 M2021 in operating cost, 12 M2021 in externality costs can be achieved if a cold ironing system is used. Monte Carlo analysis shows that there is a probability of 95% to save between 10.3 and 8.1 M in operating costs.Graphical AbstractSchematic of a cold ironing system (Abu Bakar, Guerrero, et al. 2022)