Electric Boats

[magnetman]

This is what I was getting at but you put it better than I did. 

 

Compare it to a flood but it isn't water it is information. A lot of people will panic when flooded and have no idea to process it. 

 

 

[cuthound]

3 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Thats useful information - so it uses ~ 60% more diesel to run an electric boat (~1.6 litres per hour) than it does to run a diesel boat (~1 litre per hour)

 

Who'd have thought it !

 

Pretty much what I said ages ago.

 

However, what batteries do they have, LA or Lithium? Charging losses of LA are more than double that of lithiums, plus lithiums charge up much quicker.

[IanD]

11 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Pretty much what I said ages ago.

 

However, what batteries do they have, LA or Lithium? Charging losses of LA are more than double that of lithiums, plus lithiums charge up much quicker.

You did note the correction from the OP, as well as all the uncertainties, and lack of comparative data?

 

To repeat some reliable data as opposed to anecdote or apple-to-pears comparisons, here is the Ortomarine trial report -- the only objective comparison done so far, I believe:

 

https://www.ortomarine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Ortomarine-Narrowboat-Trial-Final-Report.pdf

 

For those who don't want to read all 62 pages, the simple summary is as follows:

 

Parallel Hybrid installations can halve the fuel burned compared
with a conventional installation.
• Serial Hybrid installations can reduce the fuel burned to one third
that of a conventional installation.
• The sunshine available on the day of the trial provided as much as
one third of the energy used during the cruise.

 

This includes the power from solar panels; if you ignore this (or it's used for other purposes like domestic power on both types of boat) the fuel saving for propulsion is about a third and a half respectively.

[ditchcrawler]

3 hours ago, magnetman said:

I read it as a negative post about facebook not about electric boats. 

 

I personally think negative posts about facebook should be encouraged because facebook is the porn of the devil. 

 

 

 I bet more people who visit this forum and leave again say that

 

[cuthound]

35 minutes ago, IanD said:

You did note the correction from the OP, as well as all the uncertainties, and lack of comparative data?

 

To repeat some reliable data as opposed to anecdote or apple-to-pears comparisons, here is the Ortomarine trial report -- the only objective comparison done so far, I believe:

 

https://www.ortomarine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Ortomarine-Narrowboat-Trial-Final-Report.pdf

 

For those who don't want to read all 62 pages, the simple summary is as follows:

 

Parallel Hybrid installations can halve the fuel burned compared
with a conventional installation.
• Serial Hybrid installations can reduce the fuel burned to one third
that of a conventional installation.
• The sunshine available on the day of the trial provided as much as
one third of the energy used during the cruise.

 

This includes the power from solar panels; if you ignore this (or it's used for other purposes like domestic power on both types of boat) the fuel saving for propulsion is about a third and a half respectively.

 

Yes, I did read all of it and saw the OP's correction.

 

When I was working for BT I had access to low hour redundant diesel generators and could have purchased VRSLA batteries at the price BT paid, so considered (briefly) building a new boat using a diesel generator to drive an electric motor. Five minutes of "fag packet" calculations showed that a combination of LA charging losses and using a relatively large generator to feed the low mid and tail charge currents for the extended time taken to charge a lead acid battery would consume far more fuel than a conventional diesel engine and gearbox set up for a narrowboat, so I dropped the idea. Hence my comment.

 

Since then lithium batteries, solar panels and readily available smaller generators have arrived and changed the viability of diesel electric boats, hence why I asked what batteries the OP had.

 

You really must stop taking everything as a personal criticism. Incidentally how do you manage to read and respond to so many posts on so many threads whilst still at work?

 

I'm retired and don't have that much time to read and respond to everything. Whilst I was working I only had time to read CWDF during the odd lunch break and after I had returned home from work.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by cuthound
spillung

[IanD]

I wasn't taking it as a personal criticism, just providing some actual facts as opposed to speculation or anecdote... 😉

[peterboat]

I have been accepted so I will ask the question about batteries and generator running, I am going up the flight end of the month so I will see how much generator running I need for it in hours against cruising, I will be against the current 

[ditchcrawler]

Just now, peterboat said:

I have been accepted so I will ask the question about batteries and generator running, I am going up the flight end of the month so I will see how much generator running I need for it in hours against cruising, I will be against the current 

I think that is where electric really scores. I did the Stourbridge flight the other day, 2½ hours, out of that I was only moving for 1 hr 10min so for almost half the time my engine was burning diesel doing nowt, you electric motor would just be sitting there smiling at you.

[peterboat]

1 minute ago, ditchcrawler said:

I think that is where electric really scores. I did the Stourbridge flight the other day, 2½ hours, out of that I was only moving for 1 hr 10min so for almost half the time my engine was burning diesel doing nowt, you electric motor would just be sitting there smiling at you.

I will need to run it because I need some hot water and heating 

[Alan de Enfield]

7 minutes ago, peterboat said:

I have been accepted

 

 

Good luck with the move, I hope it proves to be as beneficial as you think. 

New cruising grounds await.

[IanD]

13 minutes ago, peterboat said:

I have been accepted so I will ask the question about batteries and generator running, I am going up the flight end of the month so I will see how much generator running I need for it in hours against cruising, I will be against the current 

When running down from Sheffield I was running the genny more than half the time, as expected because there wasn't much solar and I was rolling along using around 4kW into the motor. Going slower later on up the Rochdale average power dropped (about 3kW when cruising?) and so did genny running times, even more so when doing a lot of locking. On shallow stretches like bits of the T&M it was quite easy to find power going up to 5kW or so without me noticing (little noise or wake) to get reasonable progress.

 

All as expected, no surprise -- if you use more power, the genny has to run for longer... 🙂

10 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I think that is where electric really scores. I did the Stourbridge flight the other day, 2½ hours, out of that I was only moving for 1 hr 10min so for almost half the time my engine was burning diesel doing nowt, you electric motor would just be sitting there smiling at you.

Exactly -- the days with lots of locks (e.g. Rochdale) I don't think it ran more than a couple of hours per day. If it had been sunny in summer, the solar yield would have dropped to about an hour per day.

 

And starting off from fully charged from shoreline, it didn't run at all for a large part of the first day, it could have not run at all if I'd set the SoC at which the genny cut in lower. If not in a big hurry, I could probably have a weekend away from the marina without running it at all... 🙂

Edited November 15, 2023 by IanD

[peterboat]

16 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

Good luck with the move, I hope it proves to be as beneficial as you think. 

New cruising grounds await.

Seem a nice bunch thanks for posting the link, I have asked the question to him, however he is asking everyone else what their setups are so clearly he thinks something is amiss. 

[peterboat]

So I asked the Question and I know why they are using a lot of diesel see  link and decide yourself 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1780973312362190/permalink/1805218013271053/

[ditchcrawler]

2 minutes ago, peterboat said:

So I asked the Question and I know why they are using a lot of diesel see  link and decide yourself 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1780973312362190/permalink/1805218013271053/

I will see if they let me in

 

[peterboat]

3 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I will see if they let me in

 

I had to join to get in, great little forum. The problem is battery bank isnt big enough and solar could do with being bigger as well 

[ditchcrawler]

28 minutes ago, peterboat said:

I had to join to get in, great little forum. The problem is battery bank isnt big enough and solar could do with being bigger as well 

Well they are not very choosey, they let me straight in 

[peterboat]

2 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

Well they are not very choosey, they let me straight in 

Same here

[ditchcrawler]

24 minutes ago, peterboat said:

Same here

Yes but you have an electric boat and I didn't lie 

[peterboat]

12 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Yes but you have an electric boat and I didn't lie 

Its for people who are interested as well it seems 

[ditchcrawler]

19 hours ago, peterboat said:

Its for people who are interested as well it seems 

They even discuss toilets, electric ones 🤣

[booke23]

On 23/05/2022 at 22:17, MJG said:

Electric boat by Weston Boats.

 

 

 

On 24/05/2022 at 08:09, peterboat said:

Great find Martin, shame about all those very heavy and large batteries, LifePo4s would have been so much better for the job. Apart from that it's a lovely boat and I love that work top.

 

CTC has just released an update video on this boat. I see they have a porti potty which they use for liquids and only actually use the incinerator toilet for solids. 

 

 

Edited January 16 by booke23

[Ronaldo47]

The 2025 date for all new boats to be designed with zero emission capacity that is quoted on the first page of this thread (September 25, 2020) clearly originates from paragraph 10  of the "Green Maritime plan" document. 

 

However, the quoted text, while accurate in itself, has been taken out of context, because it  omits the wording of paragraph 8 which precedes it. 

 

"8. These zero emission shipping ambitions are intended to provide aspirational goals for the sector, not mandatory targets. They can only be achieved through collaboration between Government and industry, promoting the zero emission pathways that maximise the economic opportunitues for the UK economy while also minimising costs for UK shipping." 

 

So prima facie, while the building of electric boats represents a voluntary action by the builders that goes some way to help  the Government to achieve its "aspirational goals",  this would seem to be a voluntary initiative rather than something forced on them by legislation.

 

Reference has also been made to boats that are used only on inland waterways for leisure, being covered by the  Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation Regulations. True enough they are: however,  my understanding is that these regulations only apply to suppliers of fuel for such boats, and not to the boats themselves.  Suppliers must supply a certain proportion of fuel above a threshold from renewable sources. The regulations do allow higher proportions of non-green fuel to be supplied on payment of a surcharge, and so could make conventional fuels more expensive, just as conventional coal was allowed to be sold as long as the merchant paid a hefty charge to register and kept detailed records of sales. 

 

The "Fuel supplers' guidance" pages  make an interesting read if you like that sort of thing..  

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/renewable-transport-fuel-obligation-rtfo-compliance-reporting-and-verification

 

The "RTFO compliance 2024" document (179 pages) seems to be very enthusiastic about the use of green hydrogen, both to power conventional IC engines directly and for conversion to other types of fuel like ammonia. Using energy derived from algae gets an extensive mention, complete with flow charts (possibly the origin of the "bionic duckweed" solution to  green motive power for railways that is sometimes despairingly mentioned  by a columnist in "Modern Railways").  

 

So great importance is being placed on new innovative technologies, many of which may well be practical for large sea-going vessels, but which, like hydrogen,  do not appear to be very practical for a typical narrowboat that is actually used for cruising for reasons that have been discussed on another thread. 

 

 

 

Edited January 17 by Ronaldo47
typos

[ditchcrawler]

Here is the latest Quiet revolution? UK sees new breed of 'green' narrowboats (msn.com)

[Ronaldo47]

It seems from the article that many of the electric boats are in fact hybrids.

 

Reference is made to doing a day's cruising on "mainly" solar power, which according to posters on other threads, might be possible on a sunny day in mid-summer, but which is unrealistic for a narrowboat under typical English weather conditions .  

[IanD]

4 minutes ago, Ronaldo47 said:

It seems from the article that many of the electric boats are in fact hybrids.

 

Reference is made to doing a day's cruising on "mainly" solar power, which according to posters on other threads, might be possible on a sunny day in mid-summer, but which is unrealistic for a narrowboat under typical English weather conditions .  

 

It's not even possible in midsummer if you want to cruise all day for several days in a row, unless you go *really* slowly... 😉

 

Some real figures for a real hybrid narrowboat...

 

Typical energy use for a full day of cruising : 15kWh (propulsion only -- don't forget to add domestic use on top)

Typical solar yield per day in midsummer (2kWp panels) : 7kWh

 

Propulsion use can be bigger if you're cruising fast for a long day on canals with few locks and moored boats -- I've seen up to 25kWh on the Sheffield and South Yorkshire.

 

The only way to make the numbers add up without a generator (or spending a lot of tie moored) is to go more slowly, certainly a lot more slowly than a diesel boat typically does, so instead of using around 3kW you use around 1kW -- but this is pretty much "tickover speed" cruising, like you're supposed to do when passing moored boats.

 

Most boaters wouldn't want to do this -- a lot don't even do it past moored boats... 😉

 

Of course given the onboard battery, with solar only (no generator) it's perfectly possible to cruise for one long day (maybe even two...) if you then moor up for a day or two (or three or four...) to let the solar recharge the batteries. But don't forget you won't get all that 7kWh/day solar for this because domestic power usage will eat some of this up...

 

Spring/autumn, you're going to need a genny unless you hardly move at all. Winter, you absolutely need one to stop the lights going out... 😞