Shoreside Power

The Port of Hueneme, one of the pioneering West Coast ports in adopting Shoreside Power for cargo vessels, faced substantial setbacks following severe damage to its Shoreside Power System during an unprecedented rain and flooding event on December 21 and 22, 2023.

Torrential rainfall, exceeding three inches per hour, impacted the City of Port of Hueneme and surrounding communities, leading to substantial damage and flooding to the Port’s Shoreside Power System—a storm well in excess of the 1,000-year storm event threshold.

Throughout the 48-hour storm, Port crews worked tirelessly to pump water away from the system. However, the overwhelming volume of water and converging stormwater flows from the local community and Naval Base Ventura County exacerbated the situation, resulting in significant flooding. The Port, working in concert with Southern California Edison, promptly deactivated power to the shoreside power electrical infrastructure to ensure the safety of its staff, labor and the community, however the system was severely damaged by the flood waters.

Internal and external engineering teams including Schneider Electric, Southern California Edison, H3 Engineering and CAL-OES have conducted thorough assessments of the electrical systems and have determined the system is beyond repair and needs full replacement. Projected costs to rebuild the system are upwards of $30 million to $40 million.

The Port quickly began to respond as our Board of Harbor Commissioners days later approved an Emergency Proclamation to facilitate our response and the Governor issued a Proclamation of State Emergency a few weeks later to integrate State Emergency response work to the flooding disaster in Ventura County.