Probably more efficient to keep inverters, panels etc on land.

phinnaeus 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I’m not a sparky but would you need inverters if the panels are just for charging batteries? On the other hand, there is probably already inverters onboard to provide AC power to passenger power points.

	▲	servo_sausage 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No, you need some kind of DC converter to regulate voltage, but no inherent requirement to go to AC. Lots of small camping and off grid systems do that. Although at the scale of a one off boat i would think it's cheaper to use the more widespread systems for bigger grid connected panel installations; so you are back to inverters.

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reactordev 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You would be consuming fossil fuels to charge a ship when the sun is giving you energy for free.

At least capture some of that to charge some batteries or extend the length of your voyage.

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WJW 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The energy is not free, since the solar panels cost money and don't last forever. Even at optimistic prices, it's still something like 0.03 USD/kWh. Install them on a boat and they have to deal with constant vibrations, humid conditions, seagulls shitting all over them, etc etc etc.

I used to work on ships and almost everything constantly breaks down without constant maintenance. I bet it would be much cheaper to put the solar panels on land and charge the ship when it's in port.

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reactordev an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I sailed around the world on a sailboat with solar. I know. It’s still better than none at all.

The energy is free. To capture it costs a little bit of money.

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vlovich123 an hour ago | parent [-]

There’s something funny to me about taking your experience with solar on a small sailboat and extrapolating this to a commercial ferry that would need a very large solar installation that’s funny to me. Something tells me the experience isn’t transferable.

	▲	reactordev 12 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The point isn’t to power the main drive, the point is to preserve energy used elsewhere on the ship. My experience sailing and dealing with vessels from 30ft to 180ft give me a perspective that you probably don’t. Providing solar panels along the roof would give the ship a few KWh of power that would otherwise be drawing from the main batteries. This would extend the range of the ship by 5-10%.

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teiferer 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That may all be true, but there are other benefits that could make it worth it. For example it could be, in theory, self-sufficient forever if something else breaks down making it unable to maneuver. Then you can at least sit in the middle of the sea and have your heating and cooking and desalination working until you repair the propulsion.

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padjo 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You already have MWh of batteries for that.

	▲	reactordev an hour ago \| parent [-]
		No you don’t because after a few days broken down, they are drained without solar.

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cush 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why don’t electric cars and trucks have solar panels then?

	▲	reactordev an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Oh you mean like the Aptera or the Hyundai Ioniq 5? They do have solar panels built in. Prius Prime as well. These aren’t powerful enough to charge the main drive though, not enough surface area and voltage.

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OfficeChad 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

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NooneAtAll3 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

more efficient to leave surface unused?

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scraptor 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

More efficient to spend the same amount of money on shoreside panels with lower installation costs.

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jeltz 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Do you have solar panels on top of your head? If not why do you leave that space unused? Space being there is one of the worst possible reasons. That bloats designs and makes them expensive to build and maintain.

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servo_sausage 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Same reason EVs rarely have solar panels; adds weight and complexity, making it more expensive than putting the panels somewhere less wet and salty.

	▲	SideburnsOfDoom an hour ago \| parent [-]
		... and doesn't add significant charge. > The surface area of a standard car simply isn’t big enough to hold the sheer volume of solar panels that would be needed to capture a meaningful amount of energy from the sun. https://octopusev.com/ev-hub/why-dont-electric-cars-have-sol... > there just isn’t enough space on top of cars to make a meaningful contribution to the charging needs of the battery https://www.forbes.com/sites/billroberson/2022/11/30/why-doe... The same must be true of a ship. Put the larger solar panel installations at the places where the vehicles charge.

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bell-cot 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Talk to a marine engineer about the overhead (equipment, training, emergency procedures, etc.) of adding a small-scale solar plant to all the things that they've already got to deal with on a ship.

And recall that this bridge - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Scott_Key_Bridge_(Balt... - will need a multi-billion dollar replacement, because the tiny engineering staff of a huge freighter could not diagnose and correct a surprise electrical failure. Within the maybe 3 1/2 minutes between the initial fault, and when the collision became physically inevitable.