A multi-agent system for navigating cost, emissions, and reliability in smart and sustainable seaports

Ports are major energy hubs and significant sources of GHG emissions, facing growing pressure to improve economic and environmental performance. This paper proposes a distributed demand-response framework using a Multi-Agent System (MAS) in the JADE platform to coordinate flexible port loads—refrigerated containers (reefers), plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), and shore power supply (SPS)—with ships at berth modeled as prosumers under explicit emission constraints. Price-aware fuzzy controllers allocate active power in real time, while an integrated, real-time MAS for decentralized voltage control shares reactive power regulation. In the examined case studies, terminal-scale simulations show a 8.949% reduction in total energy cost per kWh for flexible port loads (reefers, PEVs, SPSs). Adding ships’ generators yields a 6.666% reduction in overall port operating cost per kWh, with reductions of 6.947% (per-ship emission limits) and 6.343% (port-wide) under emissions control. The MAS with voltage support maintains bus voltages within ±5% while preserving optimal costs and real-time runtimes. The results indicate a practical pathway to cost-efficient, emissions-conscious, and voltage-compliant smart-port operations.