Cold ironing galvanic corrosion issues with regard to a shore-to-ship medium voltage connection

Abstract

Cold ironing refers to the usage of less polluting power supply sources to deliver electricity to the moored ship. Such a shore-to-ship system is used when the ship is at a port so the auxiliary combustion engines may be turned off. This paper presents the numerical simulation results of a medium voltage cold-ironing system with regard to the currents flowing between the ship's hull and grounding busbar. The IT electrical inland system with a neutral grounding resistor, as commonly used in shore-to-ship systems, is investigated. Parasitic capacitances present between the phase-to-hull and phase-to-ground in real-world applications can vary from each other. The direct and alternating currents flowing across the hull, seawater and the pier structure are amongst the causes that can lead to premature reinforced concrete degradation. Chosen cases of phase-to-ground or hull unequal capacitances influencing AC stray currents were considered.