Germany’s first land power supply for merchant ships has now gone into operation in Lübeck. Ships in harbor now draw their electricity from the local network instead of producing it with diesel generators at the cost of high pollution. The Swedish shipping line Transatlantic is the first customer for the Lübeck land electricity.
The heart of the Siemens land power supply is the Siplink system which allows an electrical connection from the ship to the land network for the first time even though the appropriate frequencies are different.

The Lübeck land connection is a pure 50 Hz system because the ship’s on-board networks are operated with the same frequency as the land network. However, the on-board network also operates with 60 Hz on two thirds of all ships world-wide. An adaptation of the land power supply in Europe is therefore necessary.
The solution is a part of the Siemens environment portfolio with which the company achieved sales of 17 billion Euros last year.