A simulation-based research on carbon emission mitigation strategies for green container terminals

This paper aims to solve the problem of how to quantify the impact of mitigation strategies on carbon emissions from port operations and shipping inside container terminals without real energy consumption data. In order to cope with complex stochastic processes in container terminals, the problem is carried out by establishing a carbon emission quantification simulation model. Firstly, the carbon emission formulation and mitigation strategies are introduced. Then, a container terminal operation simulation model is constructed considering four kinds of mitigation strategies as inputs: reduced speed in waterway channels, reduced auxiliary time at berth, on-shore power supply and alternative fuels, and increased working efficiency of port equipment. Finally, based on a real container terminal, this paper carried out a variety of simulation experiments and discovered that (1) Reduced speed from 24 to 8 knots can achieve a 48.4% reduction of carbon emissions from ships in waterway channels, and 32.9% from the whole container terminal. (2) Compared with diesel in waterway channels and at berth, the use of LNG can reduce carbon emissions by about 11% for the emissions from ships and 8% for the total emissions.