Opportunity
Shore-Power Demand, Booking & Grid-Capacity Operating System
Ports investing in shore power must coordinate vessel demand, berth schedules, electricity capacity, grid constraints, tariffs, connection requirements and billing.
Decision snapshot
- Primary user
- Primary users are port energy managers, harbour masters, berth planners, infrastructure teams and commercial managers.
- Likely buyer
- A port authority or private terminal operator is the clearest buyer because it controls the berth and often owns or procures the electrical infrastructure.
- Why now
- Government is committing capital to zero-emission vessels and port infrastructure, and the competition requires applicants to demonstrate credible future utilisation.
- Initial wedge
- A port-energy operating system that turns vessel schedules into a forward electricity demand plan.
- Key uncertainty
- Raise into the 80s if UK ports confirm that forward grid-capacity and investment orchestration remains unsolved despite current shore-power vendors.
The problem
Ports investing in shore power must coordinate vessel demand, berth schedules, electricity capacity, grid constraints, tariffs, connection requirements and billing. The investment case is difficult because demand and infrastructure have to develop together: ports need confidence that vessels will use the assets, while operators need confidence that power will be available when and where vessels call.
Operational consequences
Poor coordination can create stranded shore-power capacity, missed connections, peaks that exceed local electrical limits, manual billing, under-used infrastructure and weak evidence for future grid upgrades. UK government consultation responses specifically called for better mapping of grid capability and shore-power demand and clearer coordination between ports, operators and energy networks.
Who is underserved
Primary users are port energy managers, harbour masters, berth planners, infrastructure teams and commercial managers. Secondary users are ferry/cruise/cargo operators, distribution network operators, shore-power infrastructure owners and consultants modelling electrification investments.
Buyer and user context
A port authority or private terminal operator is the clearest buyer because it controls the berth and often owns or procures the electrical infrastructure. Value is created across capital planning and daily operations, so a sale may involve energy, operations, IT and finance stakeholders and require integration with port-call, metering and billing systems.
Evidence
Innovate UK requires shore-power projects to evidence users, pricing, utilisation, current/future demand, resilience, capacity and grid connection timelines. The Department for Transport’s shore-power call-for-evidence summary says a comprehensive review is needed to map current grid capability and demand across UK ports and calls for coordination between maritime and energy sectors. Existing vendors prove ports will buy digital tools for connection management, but also show that basic booking/billing is already served.
Evidence interpretation
The strongest gap is therefore not 'shore-power software' broadly. It is demand forecasting and grid-capacity orchestration across future port calls, investment stages and multiple power assets, with operational booking as a downstream workflow. Validation must show UK ports cannot obtain this view from their current port-community, metering or shore-power vendor stack.
Demand
Government is committing capital to zero-emission vessels and port infrastructure, and the competition requires applicants to demonstrate credible future utilisation. Ports are already deploying shore-power projects, while commercial providers such as Plug and Fjuel have built dedicated software around operating those assets. This combination signals an emerging paying category rather than a theoretical need.
Validation approach
Interview energy/operations leads at 8–12 UK ports at different electrification stages. Ask them to provide anonymised berth schedules, vessel power assumptions and grid-capacity data for one terminal; build a prototype that forecasts hourly demand and tests upgrade scenarios. Progress only if at least two ports say this is materially different from their current shore-power or port-call software.
Competition
Direct competition is meaningful: Plug Insight manages planning, documentation and invoicing for shore power, while Fjuel automates authentication, billing, call planning, performance analytics and capacity utilisation. Traditional port booking systems and energy-management suites cover adjacent pieces.
Potential defensibility
Defensibility would require deep UK DNO/grid-connection data, vessel-specific power profiles, berth-energy optimisation and investment scenario modelling that spans multiple shore-power/charging vendors. A port-wide energy digital twin with historical utilisation and forward committed demand could become hard to replace once embedded in infrastructure-planning decisions.
The opportunity
A port-energy operating system that turns vessel schedules into a forward electricity demand plan. It links vessel identity and expected power requirement to berth availability, connection type, tariff, grid headroom, local generation/storage and shore-power asset status. Operators can reserve connections, resolve conflicts and invoice actual use; planners can test future fleets, new berths, batteries or grid upgrades.
Intended outcome
Increase shore-power utilisation, reduce operational clashes and give ports/DNOs a credible evidence base for when and where additional electrical capacity is economically justified.
Commercial model
Pricing classification
Proxy based — medium confidence.
Indicative pricing
Benchmarking suggests a wide software range: a basic UK harbour-booking SaaS is publicly listed at £5,495 per instance/year, while enterprise energy-management software on G-Cloud spans roughly £1,995–£100,000 per licence/year. A specialist shore-power/grid product could test £20,000–£50,000 for an initial site integration and £25,000–£100,000 per port/year depending on assets and integrations.
Evidence basis: G-Cloud — Harbour Bookings pricing benchmark (Linked pricing/rate page; no exact comparable price was extracted for this review) is the closest verified adjacent anchor used here. Its buyer, duration and scope are not assumed to be identical; implementation is separated where the opportunity requires integration, assurance or managed delivery.
Commercial test
Ask one regulated operator, developer, utility, system planner or accountable programme owner to fund a paid test of Shore-Power Demand, Booking & Grid-Capacity Operating System lasting 8–12 weeks, using an opening price of £20,000–£50,000 and covering one live programme and 5–10 assets, submissions, connections or compliance evidence packs. Paid scope: A port-energy operating system that turns vessel schedules into a forward electricity demand plan. Charge by regulated organisation, project, asset portfolio or site and compare the fee with engineering, regulatory, data-reconciliation and programme-assurance effort. Measure evidence gaps, review/commissioning time, exception rate, forecast accuracy and avoided rework. Continue only if evidence or decision time improves by at least 20%, no critical compliance gap is missed and the buyer commits to portfolio reuse. Stop or reprice if integration effort outweighs savings, outputs fail engineering review or the buyer will not fund expansion.
Monetisation models and pricing estimates are research-informed and indicative only. Where direct pricing evidence is unavailable, estimates may use comparable products, procurement data, adjacent market benchmarks and stated assumptions. They are not financial advice, forecasts or guarantees of commercial viability. Independent market, legal and financial validation is recommended before acting.
Score rationale
Underserved score 78/100
Credible because the underlying grid/demand coordination problem is explicitly documented by government and tied to real capital investment. However, the initial 86-style thesis is weakened by direct products such as Plug Insight and Fjuel that already manage significant parts of shore-power operations.
What would change the score
Raise into the 80s if UK ports confirm that forward grid-capacity and investment orchestration remains unsolved despite current shore-power vendors. Reduce below 65 if Plug/Fjuel or port-community systems already provide vessel-level demand forecasting, grid constraints and investment scenario modelling at acceptable cost.
The score is evidence-informed editorial judgement based on manually reviewed sources. It is not a forecast or guarantee. How we score →
Evidence sources7
- Innovate UK — ZEVI 2: Electric Power
apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk
- G-Cloud — Harbour Bookings pricing benchmark
applytosupply.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk
- G-Cloud — Sigma Sustainability and Energy Management pricing
applytosupply.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk
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