What is AMP in ships ?

Alternate Maritime Power or AMP is an anti-pollution measure which helps in reducing air pollution generated from diesel generators by using shore electric power as a substitute.

AMP is used when the ship is halting at a port so that the engines of the ship (working on diesel) do not need to be used unnecessarily. This, in turn, helps in reducing the emissions from the ships by a great margin. This process is also called cold ironing.

ALTERNATE MARINE POWER (AMP)

The process of cold ironing can be explained with the help of a few simple steps:

When the ships are being loaded or unloaded in a port or dock, alternate marine power is supplied to them
This is done so with the help of supply cables that are plugged into an electricity supply board in the port on one end and to the ship’s power supply board on the other
The process is called cold ironing because, in the olden days when the ship’s mainframe engines used to be rested, they used to get cold while the power was being transferred in this manner
The process leads not just preservation of the marine ecosystem but also contributes to lesser usage of diesel and other oily power supply materials
AMP provides power for lights, refrigerators, air-conditioners and other equipment on a ship
The power coming from the shore can be from a separate power generation unit or from the power plant supplying power to the port city or town.

At present, there are four different variations in the AMP that is provided from the port to a ship or a tanker. The same can be listed as follows:

11000 Volts of AC (Alternate Current)
6600 Volts of AC
660 Volts of AC
440 Volts of AC

Let’s understand each of them below:

Cable Reel

The cable reel is a ship-mounted reel that is designed to handle electrical cables that connect the ship to a land-based power source when moored at a port. The cables act as conduits for electrical power and fibre optic communication.

Once the cables are connected, the cable reel reels up for certain seconds every few minutes (according to the design) in order to recover any slack that results from ship movements and wind by changing to automatic mode. The cable reel is grounded to the hull with the help of a grounding bolt.

Reel Control Center & Pendant

The reel control centre is an IP enclosure, which incorporates the electrical switchgear required to control the cable reel operation. A pendant controller with 4 functions acts as the operator interface, and the indicator lamps mounted on the door of the enclosure provide the feedback.

AMP Connection Box

AMP connection box is the place where shore cables coming from the other end of the cable reel are connected. They are two in number, one at port side and other at the starboard side. The box is used for changing the connection of plugs to the mooring side. Usually, the plugs maintain connection except during maintenance.

6600V Shore Panel

This panel is a switch gear for receiving electric power from the shore. A vacuum circuit breaker (VCB) and an earthing switch (ES) for high voltage are equipped herein, along with a protection relay for high voltage.

Transformer

When AMP system is in use, the shore side power is transformed from the high voltage to low voltage, and the power is supplied to the main switchboard (MSB).

Main Switchboard

AMP panel in the main switchboard (MSB) can operate by an automatic or manual operation to synchronize with the shore power without leading to blackout situation.

AMP Control Panel

AMP system is controlled by this panel. It has a condition monitoring function.

Fiber Optic Communication

In some AMP systems, fiber optic communication is used between shore and ship. A fiber optic cable goes along inside the cable for the purpose of communication. Clean fiber optic components are a requirement for quality connections between fiber optic equipment. Any contamination in the fiber connection can cause a communication failure. Even microscopic dust particles can cause a variety of problems for optical connections. By comparison, a typical human hair is 50 to 75 micrometres in diameter and is about 8 times larger than a dust particle. So, even though dust might not be visible, it is still present in the air and can deposit onto the connector. In addition to dust, other types of contamination must also be cleaned off the end face.

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1. A: Ampers, Amps

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