Policy implementation barriers and economic analysis of shore power promotion in China

The mandatory use of shore power (SP), in place of auxiliary engine generated power, has been adopted worldwide as one of the effective measures to reduce ships' in-port emissions when they berth at ports. However, SP promotion is not smooth in many countries. This paper takes China as an example to explore the barriers to SP policy implementation by conducting in-depth interviews and builds cost-benefit models to estimate the costs and investment payback years of SP reconstruction of the port and ships based on subsidy policies. Specifically, real data collected from the Port of Shanghai are used as key parameters in the economic analysis. The results show that the government should launch appropriate subsidy policies to boost the promotion of SP technologies. The more efficient the subsidies that the government offers to ports and shipping companies for SP facility reconstruction are, the faster these companies can recover the cost.