California Energy Commission Funds Port of Hueneme’s Zero Emission Blueprint

PORT OF HUENEME一 On Aug. 24 the Port of Hueneme announced that they had received $200,000 in grant funding from the California Energy Commission’s Clean Transportation Program for the port’s blueprint project “Sustainable Power Advancement and Resiliency for our Community.”

The blueprint is a forward-looking document that will create an actionable plan for the port to move forward with its decarbonization plans.

“The blueprint is essentially a forward-looking document that is going to incorporate two major elements,” said Giles Pettifor port environmental manager. “One is going to be a community outreach portion that is going to work with local stakeholders to introduce concepts and related information around the concept and the goal of port decarbonization. And the second piece…Doing an in-depth quantified assessment of energy needs and energy uses at the port that are driven by the cargo…specifically away from fossil fuels to zero-emission decarbonize fuels what those realities are. How long might it take how much might it cost and what might be the right fuels to use in combination to enable success to the port in the coming future.”

The port is partnering with Ventura County Air Pollution Control District, BREATHE SoCal, Coalition for Clean Air, and Zero-Emission Advisors to create a roadmap for the Port to implement infrastructure that will produce zero carbon emissions.

The project is set to start in the next couple of weeks, the Port will be conducting simultaneous technical assessments, and outreach partners like BREATHE SoCal will spend the time identifying stakeholders and developing working groups to introduce stakeholders to the concept.

“To really engage [stakeholders] as participants in the planning exercise so we are really taking an inventory of everyone’s concerns points of interest and insights and analyzing the port system from an operation and technical perspective to develop the requirements for infrastructure,” said Jorden Kemper, founding partner for Zero Emission Advisors. “So before we can really make any decisions about how much hydrogen refueling capacity we will need or fast charging on-site energy production we really need to understand what are the baseline requirements for this ecosystem and the tenants that are operating there and the equipment that they are using. That is really the general flow starting from that and moving through the Port’s designing and plan that has real targets, real dates, and real goals out of the back of it really looking to create commercial activity we are moving from this planning phase to implementation to actually making these things come to real life.”

The blueprint is set to be finishing in the spring of 2023, Pettifor said that the critical piece is turning the blueprint into an actionable tool and ensuring the Port can continue to use the document moving forward as a guideline for construction or the replacement of equipment.

“We don’t want this to sit on a shelf and gather dust we really want to make this a living document that is sort of a road map if you will,” said Pettifor. “… The thing about Hueneme that makes it a very different solar system than some of the other California ports is that the ort authority is so integrated into the day-to-day operation…What that means is that planning documents like this that are specific to us are going to be really essential in helping us guide that implementation but also because our hands are literally in everything we will have the opportunity to bring in all of our cargo partners… Bring in all those partners in this process that make Hueneme work essentially and ZE is going to be one of those partners because of their expertise as well as our stakeholder partners with the community groups.”

Giles and Kemper pointed out that there is no magical due date for when the project will be completed as it relies on several unpredictable elements, the Port is committing to a zero-emission future and the blueprint will serve as a roadmap moving forward to guide the Port and the various stakeholders towards the next steps.

“We want to make this a real achievable goal of zero-emission,” said Pettifor.