[oldvirginian]

“I thought the infrastructure bill is meant for things like this.”

I’m pretty sure its the SHIPS that have to be renovated to use only shore power. They run their on board generators because they weren’t built to run on shore power.
They’re talking about miles of wiring, junction boxes, fuse stations, and the terminals needed for the hook up to the shore based power lines.
Each shipping company will be responsible for renovating each of their ships. Massive costs that the consumer will pay for.

[asinclair]

I once worked for a company that needed to work with equipment that ran on 240V 50-Hz power. For small gear, we had an electronic converter. When you start talking big equipment, you can use a motor-generator set with pulleys and a belt -- and for ship terminals, it would be cheaper for everyone if such a motor-generator set was on dry land instead of on every single ship.

The IBM System 370 computer systems used a motor-generator set to isolate the computer electronics from mains feeds. You just change the motor to match the power from the panel. (Frequency didn't matter to the generator side, because everything was converted to DC anyway.)