The performance of container terminals needs to be improved to adapt to the growth of handled containers and maintain sustainability. This paper provides a methodology to balance the throughput and energy consumption of equipment inside a container terminal. The behaviors of different types of equipment in the container terminal are modeled as a collection of interconnected hybrid systems. Model predictive control is proposed for balancing the performance of the container terminal. A simulation study illustrates how setting a penalty on energy consumption influences the throughput of the container terminal on the one hand, and sustainability on the other hand.