How many yachts does an average person ride during his lifetime? Without argument, the relative number will be very minute when you take the visibility of cars on streets. But this minuscule activity should not deter us from taking green steps to help reduce the carbon footprint of yachts. Hybrid propulsion systems are rapidly making inroads into the yacht segment now with new forms of hybrid solutions. Hybrid technology will ensure zero emissions, noiseless drive and also eliminate the need for separate generators for on board equipment. With a slight turn of the ignition key and solely electric propulsion a speed of 5 knots will be targeted. The electric drive will boost the propulsion and that will improve the acceleration and lower fuel consumption. Learn more by reading the following.
hybrid yachts
The good
The good side of the hybrid yacht is that it will reduce fuel consumption and increase the efficiency of electric propulsion by combining battery power and solar or wind power. The energy regenerated by wind or solar power when input into a large format battery will give a more powerful initial thrust in comparison to the other standard diesel propulsion. The yachts can harness the available solar and wind energy much better than cars; therefore, the hybrid concept is even more valid for the yachts.
New paradigms are being set in the hybrid eco industry by the introduction of the hybrid ferries. Hornblower Hybrid launched in San Francisco was the pioneer in the field and it used a combination of diesel power along with solar and wind energy. Later on, they also added a proton exchange membrane fuel cell for converting the hydrogen into electricity.
Maximally lithium ion batteries are popular for carbon fiber boats. For a good power supply, excellent life cycle and advanced command and control systems a new found lithium iron magnesium phosphate battery is also being propagated. These batteries are high on both the power to weight and power to volume ratio. Also, these batteries are not prone to thermal runaway. They will help extend the cruising range of the yachts with limited fuel resources and have built in redundancy that helps in switching over from electric to diesel and vice-versa.
These technological upgradations will continue further. Many countries are already researching about the pros and cons of the hybrid propulsion. There is still room for a whole lot of betterment and these techniques will evolve with the passage of time.
The bad
Just by analyzing the present times, we can say that the disadvantages or bad points about the hybrid technology for yachts is that hybrid technology will limit the speed of the yacht and also the initial cost of investment will be high. For a displacement boat, the power requirement is calculated as a cubic function. Thus, stored fuel will help drive at the right speed, but if yachts are used for ferrying tourists on a daily basis, then a maximum solar power of 20 hp will allow 6 knots and 10hp will drive the vessel at an approximate speed of 4.5 knots. The weight of the hybrid electric motor will currently limit the efficiency at fluctuating speed levels; it will only work well at constant high speeds.
Economies of scale are yet not applicable with the hybrid technology and therefore it will be more expensive in comparison to the incumbent technology. These are the problems which researchers are working on and soon they might be out with the appropriate solutions.
The ugly
The hybrid technology is still underway in its development stages and is likely to take time to become a fully well bred and applicable entity. Analysis made by many throws light on the good and the bad about its use, but to jump to the ugly part will require more in depth knowledge about the concepts and its wide application will be awaited to conclude about the worst.
The bottom line
The hybrid propulsion system for cars and yachts is almost the same, with both requiring a combination of diesel and an electric motor. But unlike cars, yachts have much larger housetop spaces for installing solar panels or turbines for harnessing sufficient amounts of sunlight and wind that would be converted into energy. The power needs of a yacht are much greater than cars as they have the extra hotel loads. Most of them require power for heating and cooling, cooking, lighting, entertainment and much more, but given the high amount of renewable resources at their disposal this issue can be well handled.
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