Hybrid Boat

[AWETHEAYET]

Don't know if this is the correct place to ask my question, there may already be a post that covers it. but here goes.

I want to convert a future boat to hybrid, to make it all electric onboard and propultion by both engine and battery. What size invertor do I need for this task? what battery monitoring is required? What battery bank will I need? what generator / motor is available? (No limit cost and budget alternatives for the system).

 

The origion post is one of the best I have read on battery maintenance and functionality and thank you for the education.

[Alan de Enfield]

5 hours ago, AWETHEAYET said:

I want to convert a future boat to hybrid, to make it all electric onboard and propultion by both engine and battery.

Why ?

 

By doing that you are getting the worst (and most inefficient) of both worlds.

You are burning diesel to turn the alternator, to power a battery charger to charge your batteries to run a motor to turn the prop, and, getting power losses /inefficiencies at every stage.

 

You will still be using carbon based fuels, paying carbon taxes, using a 'dirty' ICE and not get any reduction in your licence fees as electric is not your SOLE means of propulsion.

 

Go one way or the other but going 'down the middle' is a waste of money, effort and fuel as you have so many losses in the power-train.

[Tony Brooks]

5 hours ago, AWETHEAYET said:

Don't know if this is the correct place to ask my question, there may already be a post that covers it. but here goes.

I want to convert a future boat to hybrid, to make it all electric onboard and propultion by both engine and battery. What size invertor do I need for this task? what battery monitoring is required? What battery bank will I need? what generator / motor is available? (No limit cost and budget alternatives for the sebgieystem).

 

The origion post is one of the best I have read on battery maintenance and functionality and thank you for the education.

I think it is fair to suggest that you need to do a lot more learning and calculations to establish just how much electricity you will need, then how to store and generate it. Although one member here seems to have developed his own all electric solar powered wide beam with lots of roof space for solar trying it on a narrow boat is not likely to end well. Although I accept that you do not have the knowledge at this point in tome I do not thing it is reasonable to ask others top do that research for you, especially as you give no indication about type of boat, type of cruising you will do and the availability of charging from the mains each and every night you are cruising.

 

Once you gain the knowledge you will see that at this time Alan is correct, you will just be wasting fuel and adding extra pollution by having to run an internal combustion engine generator which, for Boat Safety Scheme reasons, will almost certainly have to be diesel powered. Things might change if solar cells improve their efficiency or you only want to cruise an hour  slowly each day. In any case at present I think you will be changing CI  engine pollution for pollution from very frequent recycling of the batteries you will ruin.

 

Some on here are at the forefront of using Lithium battery technology for their domestic needs and one is using it for propulsion but if it really was viable for narrowboat propulsion several  more would have done it by now.

[Tony Brooks]

In case you think I was being negative some calculations.

 

I am going to assume that you have the expertise (which I suspect you do not have) to set up and control a LiPo4 lithium battery bank. This is because the way lead acid batteries accept charge makes them unsuitable for daily recharging for prolonged high current work UNLESS you have mains supply each night.

 

There are 746 Watts in a HP and it has been calculated that to drive a narrowboat at canal speed will take between 2 and 6 hp with the faster you go, the narrower and shallower the canal the more power you will need. Lets take 3hp as an example and you may need twice that or more. 746 x 3 = 2238 Watts. At a nominal 12V that equates to 2238/12 = 187 Amps. So for every hour run you will need to provide/store 187 Amp hours of electricity. For a modest 5 hour cruising day that is 187 x 5 = 933 Ah of electricity. This ignores the very high domestic demands for electric cooking etc.

 

(Now with leads acid batteries that would indicate you would need to install 1866 Ah of capacity without allowing any overhead for inadequate charging and loss of capacity over time for sulphation. Even cheap LA batteries that are no really suitable would cost you around £1500 and maybe only least a year or two).

 

It seem from what our members who are using lithium batteries that fro reasons of long life and ease they tend to run them between 20% charged and 80% charged so that 933 Ah equates to 60% of battery capacity so 933/60x100 = 1555 Ah of lithium capacity needed. Try to go for a day without any charging and that doubles. Now go on-line and look up the cost of that number of second hand lithium batteries and also the cost of new ones – remember this does not include any domestic load.

 

Within reason LiPo4 batteries will accept just about all the charge you can throw at them so just considering solar charging because you specified the lack of pollution that 933 Ah of electricity will need 933x12 = 1.2 kW of solar charge but even in high summer angled solar panels are unlikely to produce much more than 50% of their rated out put so that means 2.4kW of panels to recharge the batteries in one hour, 1.2kW for two hour recharge and 600W for four hour recharges but that is on a very bright mid summer day. You need increasingly more as you move away from mid summer until October to April the solar charge is likely to be negligible on many days. The maximum charge will also be lower either side of mid day.

None of this takes any account of the inefficiency of the motor and propeller so the real figures will be much worse.

 

Use it as a day boat with overnight charging via a hefty mains charger and it becomes doable but as soon as you add an IC engine generator with its own inefficiency the whole thing at this time becomes a nonsense for typical canal boating. Especially the all electric domestic arrangements.

 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2019 by Tony Brooks

[MtB]

31 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

Use it as a day boat with overnight charging via a hefty mains charger and it becomes doable but as soon as you add an IC engine generator with its own inefficiency the whole thing at this time becomes a nonsense for typical canal boating. Especially the all electric domestic arrangements.

 

I suspect Mr AWETHEYET has been reading the Beta Marine website which actually seems quite level-headed rather than crammed with implausible claims written by non-technical people as is often the case. It states "For every hour of diesel propulsion enough electrical energy is generated to power the electric motor for up to two hours of propulsion dependent on loads" which I suspect is what attracts the average non-technical buyer of hybrid systems. 

 

https://betamarine.co.uk/portfolio-item/kc-hybrid-propulsion/

 

The odd thing is how few (if any) claims Beta make for reduced pollution their hybrid system causes or improved fuel economy. I suspect this is because it actually uses more fuel and chucks out more CO2 and particulates than the equivalent direct drive diesel propulsion system. 

 

And if they are any good, why do we never see these hybrid systems out and about on the cut? Beta have been making them for quite a few years now. 

 

[Tony Brooks]

1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

I suspect Mr AWETHEYET has been reading the Beta Marine website which actually seems quite level-headed rather than crammed with implausible claims written by non-technical people as is often the case. It states "For every hour of diesel propulsion enough electrical energy is generated to power the electric motor for up to two hours of propulsion dependent on loads" which I suspect is what attracts the average non-technical buyer of hybrid systems. 

 

https://betamarine.co.uk/portfolio-item/kc-hybrid-propulsion/

 

The odd thing is how few (if any) claims Beta make for reduced pollution their hybrid system causes or improved fuel economy. I suspect this is because it actually uses more fuel and chucks out more CO2 and particulates than the equivalent direct drive diesel propulsion system. 

 

And if they are any good, why do we never see these hybrid systems out and about on the cut? Beta have been making them for quite a few years now. 

 

I am sure that you are correct about more pollution because neither the generation of the electricity nor the motor will be anywhere near 100% efficient.

 

I doubt the OP has been reading the  Beta bumph because he says money no object and presumably Beta can give him a price for the package.  I have had an increasing number of this sort of question come in directly or via the magazine and all major on reducing pollution as the reason but none so far have provided any hint that they have even the merest idea about the practicalities. In this case the OP has added that he wants an all electric boat, that and electric propulsion in my view makes it a pie in the sky idea at present if a decent amount of cruising at a reasonable speed is to be practical.

[AWETHEAYET]

2 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

I am sure that you are correct about more pollution because neither the generation of the electricity nor the motor will be anywhere near 100% efficient.

 

I doubt the OP has been reading the  Beta bumph because he says money no object and presumably Beta can give him a price for the package.  I have had an increasing number of this sort of question come in directly or via the magazine and all major on reducing pollution as the reason but none so far have provided any hint that they have even the merest idea about the practicalities. In this case the OP has added that he wants an all electric boat, that and electric propulsion in my view makes it a pie in the sky idea at present if a decent amount of cruising at a reasonable speed is to be practical.

Thanks Gents for your replies, I have read many things on boat electricity, including your excellent contributions to the magazine Tony for a good number of years. I am in an early stage of buying my first boat after hiring for over ten. The boat will be used for lessure, weekend and holiday use, moored in a marina on electrical hook up. I was just interested if was possible to hybrid a boat.

 

Yes it looks like I need more education on this. thank you all once again.

[Tony Brooks]

3 hours ago, AWETHEAYET said:

Thanks Gents for your replies, I have read many things on boat electricity, including your excellent contributions to the magazine Tony for a good number of years. I am in an early stage of buying my first boat after hiring for over ten. The boat will be used for lessure, weekend and holiday use, moored in a marina on electrical hook up. I was just interested if was possible to hybrid a boat.

 

Yes it looks like I need more education on this. thank you all once again.

Hybrid is perfectly possible but that would not do much for reducing pollution because you will still need to run some form of generator regularly when away from shore power. It is also likely to be far more expensive and I doubt the extra cost is worth the near silent cruising time, low pollution overall it will not be. If its noise & vibration that are an issue then an Aquadrive coupling, hospital silencer, exhaust exiting the back (not the side) and soundproofing is, in my view, likely to be more cst effective and far less problematic.

 

As Peterboat has shown it is possible to run a solar powered electric boat if you accept a number of limitations and that includes demanding a sufficient roof area.

 

Day boat use is perfectly possible, even with LA batteries as long as the shore power charging is sufficient. Some marinas have a limited shore line supply.

 

You asked about battery monitoring and  no single meter is likely to do the job reliably at any cost you are likely to be willing to pay. The common meters that are advertised as doing the job are very likely to cause you to ruin batteries unless you really understand it, get it properly set up, and regularly fully charge the batteries and re-sync it. for most people a decent ammeter and voltmeter plus a bit of knowledge or a Smartguage and an ammeter will do the job.Its more complicated for Lithium batteries.

[Richard10002]

I've been toying with a Hybrid Toyota Rav4 or Honda CRV, for a while, but the advert for the latest Hybrid Lexus states that it "runs from two sources of power, petrol and electric.... no plugging in". (Whilst I was looking, the ones I was considering seemed to "do" around 45mpg, which is better than my current CRV, but doesn't exactly set the world alight).

 

Whilst it is obvious, it has only just come home to me, via this combination of words), that all of the power is created by burning petrol so, whilst there might be some efficiencies in using breaking power and similar to charge a battery, it cannot possibly be all that it is cracked up to be.

 

I wonder if we will be allowed Hybrid cars when all the climate change stuff comes to pass.... I doubt it. 

[Tony Brooks]

7 minutes ago, AWETHEAYET said:

Thanks Tony

You have just added a few more items to look for when viewing boats. I know that I will not find a boat that includes everthing on my wish list but the more information I can find between now and purchase time will probably change this list to something completeley different from where it started.

When it comes to electrical engineering I am no shop egg having been an industrial electrical engineer for the last 30 odd years, PLC control of machines by HMI is what I do but Batteries! they come into play to put on the safety lights when the power fails

It will not take me long to come upto speed with battery technology and I'm sure that once I grasp the fundamentals I will be able to come to terms with what is possible.

The last three issues covering the use of Lithium LifePO4 batteries have been very informative has also what I have read from all contributors to this post, and I thank you all.

 

Member Dr Bob was responsible for those articles.

 

What you need to be wary of ref battery monitoring of lead acid batteries is any meter that fundamentally counts amp hours to estimate state of charge. The variations in battery efficiency, having some settings too high (tail current) and battery capacity all conspire to  overestimate the state of charge so your batteries gradually become more and more discharged and sulphated. Such meter are very good at showing amps and volts and those can be used to infer state of charge.

Edited December 29, 2019 by Tony Brooks

[AWETHEAYET]

19 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Member Dr Bob was responsible for those articles.

 

What you need to be wary of ref battery monitoring of lead acid batteries is any meter that fundamentally counts amp hours to estimate state of charge. The variations in battery efficiency, having some settings too high (tail current) and battery capacity all conspire to  overestimate the state of charge so your batteries gradually become more and more discharged and sulphated. Such meter are very good at showing amps and volts and those can be used to infer state of charge.

So what is the best method of measuring soc? I have re-read posts on voltage levels and "charts" giving potential levels of charge but confusingly they differ, a poster did explain why (sorry if I have not quoted you) so what, if anything can be monitored to give actual soc? or am I over thinking it

[David Mack]

49 minutes ago, Richard10002 said:

I've been toying with a Hybrid Toyota Rav4 or Honda CRV, for a while, but the advert for the latest Hybrid Lexus states that it "runs from two sources of power, petrol and electric.... no plugging in".

 

Then what's the point of being hybrid?

 

For me the advantage of a hybrid would be the ability to plug it to recharge in at home (and other places where the car is left and there is a suitable power supply available), so that the short and medium length trips, which make up the vast majority of my mileage, can be done entirely on electric, whilst retaining the IC engine so I don't have to worry about running out of power on longer trips or when the electric demand is at its highest (cold nights in winter with lighting and heating on).

[MtB]

1 minute ago, David Mack said:

Then what's the point of being hybrid?

 

 

To get the reduced rate of Road Fund Licence, silly!

 

No-one ever plugs them in, they just buy them for cheaper motoring tax.

 

 

 

[Dr Bob]

1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

To get the reduced rate of Road Fund Licence, silly!

 

No-one ever plugs them in, they just buy them for cheaper motoring tax.

 

 

 

Lecky is a 1/3rd of the price of road fuel....but who needs a hybrid....just buy a lecky one that can do 300 miles for £9. Plug it in each night (if you live in a house!).

[dor]

Seen some cars advertised recently as’Mild hybrids’.
 

 It would appear that these are not designed to run on battery alone but use the electric motor to boost the IC or when coasting.

 

 It does not sound like this technology will be much use for boats.  I suspect that it is a relatively cheap way to manufacture a ‘hybrid’ and so qualify for reduced car tax.

 

[peterboat]

12 hours ago, Richard10002 said:

I've been toying with a Hybrid Toyota Rav4 or Honda CRV, for a while, but the advert for the latest Hybrid Lexus states that it "runs from two sources of power, petrol and electric.... no plugging in". (Whilst I was looking, the ones I was considering seemed to "do" around 45mpg, which is better than my current CRV, but doesn't exactly set the world alight).

 

Whilst it is obvious, it has only just come home to me, via this combination of words), that all of the power is created by burning petrol so, whilst there might be some efficiencies in using breaking power and similar to charge a battery, it cannot possibly be all that it is cracked up to be.

 

I wonder if we will be allowed Hybrid cars when all the climate change stuff comes to pass.... I doubt it. 

 

11 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

To get the reduced rate of Road Fund Licence, silly!

 

No-one ever plugs them in, they just buy them for cheaper motoring tax.

 

 

 

 

10 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

Lecky is a 1/3rd of the price of road fuel....but who needs a hybrid....just buy a lecky one that can do 300 miles for £9. Plug it in each night (if you live in a house!).

 

5 hours ago, dor said:

Seen some cars advertised recently as’Mild hybrids’.
 

 It would appear that these are not designed to run on battery alone but use the electric motor to boost the IC or when coasting.

 

 It does not sound like this technology will be much use for boats.  I suspect that it is a relatively cheap way to manufacture a ‘hybrid’ and so qualify for reduced car tax.

 

I have 2 self charging Hybrids, they both cost less to run than the equivalent pure ICE car, mine assist the the ICE engine in acceleration and never run on pure electric. The Toyota versions due run on pure electric for a very short distance and now attract very little or anything in tax advantages. Mitsubishi do a PHEV which had tax advantages but I believe they have been removed because of lack of range, governments have seen through the tax dodges of Japanese car makers. The Japanese like Hybrids for a couple of reasons  first 100volts at the plug = long charging times, secondly Japan = dirty electric nuclear closed down, the off shore seas are very deep = very few wind turbines. So some would say thei is why they have gone for Hydrogen and self charging Hybrids, problem is their hydrogen comes from Australia made from coal = very dirty! Honda has just said that it still believes that hybrids are the future rather than BEV, whilst also saying that diesels are going [all jap makers have said the same]. I suspect unless the Japs get real shortly they will miss the BEV boat and go the way of the dinosaur

[Sea Dog]

12 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

No-one ever plugs them in, they just buy them for cheaper motoring tax.

Except that a decent spec bmw i3, totally electric and theoretically even cleaner, will list price just above 40k and be colossal year 1 tax and £450 per year for the next 5.  So a "clean" car that qualified for zero road tax 2 years ago now costs more to tax than a new V8 Mustang. Go figure,  as they say.

[peterboat]

18 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Except that a decent spec bmw i3, totally electric and theoretically even cleaner, will list price just above 40k and be colossal year 1 tax and £450 per year for the next 5.  So a "clean" car that qualified for zero road tax 2 years ago now costs more to tax than a new V8 Mustang. Go figure,  as they say.

Wrong 320 squids a year it doesnt pay standard road tax because no COs I was surprised as well

Mustang however is 2135 first year and 465 per year after both figures are from next green car

[peterboat]

On 29/12/2019 at 02:24, AWETHEAYET said:

Don't know if this is the correct place to ask my question, there may already be a post that covers it. but here goes.

I want to convert a future boat to hybrid, to make it all electric onboard and propultion by both engine and battery. What size invertor do I need for this task? what battery monitoring is required? What battery bank will I need? what generator / motor is available? (No limit cost and budget alternatives for the system).

 

The origion post is one of the best I have read on battery maintenance and functionality and thank you for the education.

Awereit mate, I have a full electric widebeam I have 4.6KW of solar and 600 watts of VAWT I have a direct drive DC series electric motor running at 72 volts.  My battery bank is 30 x 36 volt Valence LifePO4 batteries they are 1.3Kwh each, on a sunny day I can cruise all day just on the sun, cruising = 3.3 kw going faster really uses power 23kw flat out which shows you why 3 mph is a good cruising speed.

PM me with your fone number and I can chat to you about it if you want I have 2 other friends with electric boats run by solar

[Sea Dog]

3 hours ago, peterboat said:

Wrong 320 squids a year it doesnt pay standard road tax because no COs I was surprised as well

Mustang however is 2135 first year and 465 per year after both figures are from next green car

You're right, I'm a bit wrong - the 5.0 litre V8 23mpg Mustang GT is now £40,830 so has just crept into the high bracket, (possibly as much due to the p155 poor exchange rate as much as anything else).  The range still starts at 38k though, so till cheaper to tax than a decent spec i3. My point remains, however, that the latest road tax scheme punishes buying more expensive cars, and does not necessarily incentivise buying more economical or less environmentally damaging ones as it used to.

[peterboat]

4 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

You're right, I'm a bit wrong - the 5.0 litre V8 23mpg Mustang GT is now £40,830 so has just crept into the high bracket, (possibly as much due to the p155 poor exchange rate as much as anything else).  The range still starts at 38k though, so till cheaper to tax than a decent spec i3. My point remains, however, that the latest road tax scheme punishes buying more expensive cars, and does not necessarily incentivise buying more economical or less environmentally damaging ones as it used to.

I had an imported 2006 Shelby Mustang convertible, ok LHD but its 5.4 supercharged engine was good for 550 HP and ran very well on LPG. low road tax cos it was imported ?

[Sea Dog]

Just now, peterboat said:

I had an imported 2006 Shelby Mustang convertible, ok LHD but its 5.4 supercharged engine was good for 550 HP and ran very well on LPG. low road tax cos it was imported ?

Ooh, lovely!!  Not Greta Thunberg's current favourite motor I guess, but times were different. 

 

I just can't get my head around how buying something like, say, an i3 (I dont have one) with exactly the same drive train and eco stats but with a nicer interior, panoramic sunroof or whatever, gets you hit with a bigger road tax bill. List prices are largely a work of fiction anyway - how can it be a sensible way to apportion road tax? Surely, if the VED is to be an effective eco incentive, some sort of fuel economy and or emissions basis would make far more sense?

[peterboat]

3 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Ooh, lovely!!  Not Greta Thunberg's current favourite motor I guess, but times were different. 

 

I just can't get my head around how buying something like, say, an i3 (I dont have one) with exactly the same drive train and eco stats but with a nicer interior, panoramic sunroof or whatever, gets you hit with a bigger road tax bill. List prices are largely a work of fiction anyway - how can it be a sensible way to apportion road tax? Surely, if the VED is to be an effective eco incentive, some sort of fuel economy and or emissions basis would make far more sense?

There is from 2020 and fully implemented by2021 the fleet average for cars has to be as per the following

From 2021, phased in from 2020, the EU fleet-wide average emission target for new cars will be 95 g CO₂/km. This emission level corresponds to a fuel consumption of around 4.1 l/100 km of petrol or 3.6 l/100 km of diesel.

Parent category: Vehicle

 

Reducing CO2 emissions from passenger cars - European ...

 

https://ec.europa.eu › clima › policies › transport › vehicles › cars_en

[WotEver]

45 minutes ago, peterboat said:

3.6 l/100 km of diesel.

That’s 78mpg!

1 hour ago, peterboat said:

I had an imported 2006 Shelby Mustang convertible, ok LHD but its 5.4 supercharged engine was good for 550 HP and ran very well on LPG. low road tax cos it was imported ?

... but it couldn’t go round corners. 
 

Looked good though. 
 

I followed an i8 today - impressive to look at. 

 

 

Edited December 30, 2019 by WotEver
Repetition

[peterboat]

1 minute ago, WotEver said:

That’s 78mpg!

Yup its the death of SUVs unless electric 4 x 4s unless electric in fact nearly all cars unless electric! Didnt you wonder why VW suddenly go electric in a big way? Its to take the fleet average down to allow for the bigger cars. Its why JLR have been going electric to