Decarbonization at the Port of Santos could be affected by lack of electricity supply

From left to right: Beto Mendes, Bruno Stupello, Henrique Araújo, Marcelo Schmitt and Rodrigo Casado (Alexsander Ferraz/AT)

The availability of energy with a focus on decarbonization is an issue that must be closely monitored for the future. The statement was made by Santos Brasil director Bruno Stupello, who took part in the second panel of the Summit Porto-Indústria, held Tuesday at Grupo Tribuna . The discussion focused on Logistics Bottlenecks, Competitiveness and Neoindustrialization.

“Will we have enough energy to meet the demand of all terminals? If I look only at the demand from Santos Brasil, with the 20 container ships that call each week, and plug all of them into the electrical grid, will there be enough for everyone, for the entire complex? So, when we talk about bottlenecks to development, and considering the decarbonization agenda, electricity will have to be viewed as infrastructure required for the development of the sector”, he said.

According to Stupello, terminal investments in decarbonization are not the bottleneck, as the technology and resources are available, and are often already included in lease agreements. At Santos Brasil, 16 of the 55 yard-handling equipment units are electrically powered. As for trucks, the first units were powered by natural gas and, as a second step, some vehicles now use second-generation biomethane. There are also 12,000 square meters of solar panels, generating approximately 4% of the company’s current electricity demand.

“The largest share of carbon emissions from container terminals still comes from ships. Two years ago, we consulted the main shipping company operating at our terminal, asking when it would be ready to connect ships to the power grid, because we were ready to invest. The response was that they did not yet have a plan. But this agenda is becoming increasingly consistent,” he said.

Beto Mendes, Operations Director of the Autoridade Portuária de Santos (APS), recalled the ongoing bidding process involving the Usina de Itatinga, in Bertioga. The project calls for the facility to be repowered, increasing its installed capacity from the current 15 MW to 18 MW.

“Within this planning, we can obviously enable the supply of both vehicles and ships. We have already implemented shore-side electrification in two-thirds of the area, in partnership with the Sindicato das Empresas de Navegação Marítima (Sindiporto), but focused on tugboats”, he said.

“There is no single fuel that will be the solution for supplying ships. I always say that, at a minimum, ships will be trifuel”, he added.

Bottlenecks and storage

Henrique Mendes de Araújo, Institutional and Government Relations Director at Copersucar, draws attention to the restrictions imposed by the Agência Nacional do Petróleo, Gás Natural e Biocombustíveis (ANP) regarding ethanol, following a public consultation to amend the specification standard for marine fuels, which currently considers ethanol to be among the fuels still undergoing testing.

“They argue that ethanol can be purchased by stating that its destination is maritime use and then be used for fraud, with water being added before it is sold at gas stations. In other words, the risk of fraud that the Brazilian government has difficulty controlling will require restrictions on an economic potential that could benefit the country itself”, he said.

Araújo also pointed out the difficulty of bringing the product to the Port of Santos. “The largest ethanol transportation pipeline in Brazil runs from Uberaba (MG) to Ribeirão Preto (SP), then down to Paulínia (SP) and São Caetano do Sul (SP), with one line going to Ilha d’Água (RJ). But we cannot send ethanol to the Port of Santos. It has to come by road, which also makes no sense.”

Marcelo Tiacci Schmitt, General Manager of Stolthaven Terminals Brasil, believes that the path forward for the fuel market is to move storage facilities inland through the railway network.

“We see port storage facilities and the primary zone as extremely valuable assets that should be used much more as a buffer and transit point than actually for static storage”, he said.

Services

Rodrigo Casado, CEO of Movecta, believes that the back-of-port sector needs to rethink its business model and go beyond storage in order to add value for customers, including terminals. “If each player understands how it can add value by creating services and specializations, there is room for those of us in the back-of-port area to add value to this ecosystem. I see much more of an agenda of collaboration than one of extinction. The problem is not a lack of demand. Our role now will no longer be storage, because there will be capacity for that. For example, every increase at Santos Brasil is equivalent to several Movectas”, he said.