Power surges and outages at the Port of Los Angeles are hindering efforts to phase out diesel-powered machinery as officials rely more on the electric grid to power their operations, it was reported Tuesday.
Representatives of private companies that handle containers at the port said power surges and lulls are knocking out cranes and other cargo equipment, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The terminal operators have been asking how the port expects to achieve a mandate to phase out diesel-powered machinery by 2030 when Tuesday's power supply is so unreliable, the newspaper reported.
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Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said the port's main problem isn't power supply but power distribution.
"The surges and the lulls are magnified with more sensitive electrical equipment," Seroka told the Journal.
Several executives told the newspaper the power issues are knocking out not just cranes but also the automated gates that accept and deliver boxes to trucks and the computer systems that manage the location of containers.
The terminals are leased to private companies by the city-controlled port, and they get their power from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
Simon Zewdu, senior assistant general manager at LADWP, told the Journal one of the port's major weaknesses is that it is served by overhead power lines that are exposed to the elements. LADWP officials said the outages were caused by a series of unusual events, including equipment failure, bad weather and birds hitting power lines.
Zewdu said LADWP is working on a $500 million project to bring extra power to the port using underground lines, which should improve reliability, according to the Journal. The project is expected to be complete by 2029.
The terminal operators upgraded ship-to-shore cranes to run on electric power decades ago. Now, they are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in electric- and battery-powered equipment such as yard cranes and massive forklifts, the Journal reported.
Los Angeles and Long Beach ports committed in 2017 to phase out diesel- powered cargo-handling equipment as part of a wider push in California to reduce emissions.
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