Phase-Dependent Renewable Deployment for Port Electrification: A Framework for Managing the Transition from Energy-Limited to Power-Limited Operation Using Newhaven Port as a Case Study

Maritime port electrification increases annual energy demand and short-duration power requirements, yet renewable-deployment studies commonly assess a single future condition. This study develops a phase-dependent framework that jointly evaluates renewable nameplate adequacy, annual renewable utilisation and maximum gross grid imports as port demand evolves. Newhaven Port, United Kingdom, is examined through five planning phases using hourly demand and 2023 solar and wind profiles, photovoltaic generation, vertical-axis wind turbines and Liquid-Air Energy Storage. Three complementary indicators are applied: Renewable Power Margin (RPM), Renewable Utilisation Ratio (RUR) and Peak Grid Import Ratio (PGIR). Engineering sensitivities address resource amplitude, wake loss, storage energy capacity, charging power and economic assumptions. Following wind deployment, annual renewable generation ranges from 29.76 to 71.86 GWh/year across the resource cases, compared with 48.44 GWh/year centrally. Phase 5 remains power-limited in every case, with RPM of −13.88 MW, while RUR ranges from 52.7% to 73.6%. Increasing the Phase 5 LAES charging limit from 50 to 62.5 MW raises PGIR from 1.64 to 2.06 without increasing annual discharge, whereas increasing storage energy capacity by 25% provides no additional annual benefit. Economic results are sensitive to the VAWT cost basis and annual yield. Project-informed turbine-, mast- and site-condition costs increase the indicative VAWT LCOE to approximately 13.9–28.3 p/kWh across the tested deployment and yield cases. Rooftop PV is therefore the lowest-cost no-regret option, while the relative positions of VAWTs and fence PV are conditional. The numerical transition is Newhaven-specific; the transferable contribution is a phase-based workflow that separates installed-power balance, renewable absorption and connection burden under uncertainty.