Advances in Batteries & Solar - NIGEL CALDER on the future of ENERGY GENERATION & STORAGE on boats
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- Опубликовано: 23 май 2022
- Exciting times are coming! BoatHowTo.com expert Nigel Calder offers a glimpse into the future: New technologies for batteries and solar cells promise a radical improvement on our lifestyle on the water.
Thanks Nigel for a succinct summary of where and how boating electrical supply/storage is heading. Exciting times for better efficiency.
That was excellent. Thank you for sharing this this information. Very worthwhile to listen to.
Agreement here. New batteryes and solar popping up all over now. So in 5 year we for shure will lock back and see very big different
Very interesting and thanks for sharing 👍
Toyota is on it too. Theirs is a silver-based one with much quicker charging turnaround.
Thanks Nigel. It feels that the only way to get useful electric only boating in the nearish future is to reduce speeds to reduce the power needed. Your example of 7kW to go 6kn is apropos - what if you reduced slightly to 5.5 or 5.3 knots - the usable hours goes up significantly. Rather than an extra 10% generating capacity in solar panel efficiency, or 100% Wh/kg in battery storage which still needs generating, reducing speed a little could immediately gain 50-100% or more of actual hours on the water - which is where we want to be.
The problem is that assumption is based on mirror calm conditions, and the Marine Environment is rarely like that, and can change in a remarkably short period of time. When things go Pear Shaped, how long do you think your battery charge is going to last when the motor is flat out because you're trying to make headway ? Which would you prefer on the back of yourv10ft inflatable tender, a battery powered outboard which can rapidly drop to single digits minutes power availability, or a 6hp four stroke with a 3 gallon external fuel tank, with a range if over 100 miles in mirror calm conditions, and more than enough range to get you where you need to go, when things deteriorate ? Remember, if you have dropped yourself right in it thanks to assumptions and presumptions, are you prepared to put the lives of others at risk, by expecting them to come and Rescue foolish you ? Something people need to grasp, nothing available now, or for the foreseeable matches the Energy Density of Gasoline or especially Diesel. My Next Sailboat is going to have diesel tanks holding 500 litres, and with an efficient diesel engine, and a very efficient folding prop, under engine power alone, the motoring Range will be in excess of 1500 miles. If All goes well, given at worst an Atlantic Crossing takes 3 weeks, The most diesel I should use is 4 litres a day. 2 litres for an hour just before Dawn, sorts hot showers and cooked breakfast out so as not to drain the batteries, plus should start topping them up , then an hour after sunset for hot showers and cooking the evening meal, plus topping the batteries up ahead of night watches. Synthetic Renewable energy density enhanced Diesel, is going to be needed for the foreseeable Future. Even incredible batteries need charging up, remember. Yes I will have Solar Panels, Wind Generator and a large House Bank of Lifepo4 batteries inboard, but you have to be Rational, and have backups that are reliable and work in the Marine, and very large lakes environment. Get it wrong 500 miles offshore, and you and those on your boat can be dead, and if you are foolish, that can happen a mile Offshore as well. Nature doesn't take prisoners. 🤔
Actually Real Scientists around the World know and have proved that Global Warming and CO2 being a problem, are a Fraud and a Scam, so much so that China has gone along with the West Destroying its Economies and Energy Infrastructure, and has passed its Industries and Manufacturing over to China, and passing its pants laughing at us for the Unscientific Fools that we are, has now Ditched it and so will BRICS, With the Majority of the World Now Queuing up to Join BRICS. Russia is fighting an industrial War in Ukraine, and The lack of an industrial and Manufacturing base in the West, has the De industrialised West Disarming through an inability to produce anything like enough weapons to be able to supply Ukraine what it needscto compete with Russia. A week after the Russians invaded, Western intelligence services via the Media was telling us Russia inly had a couple of weeks left, before it ran out of everything. every month, for the following 9 months, we get Russia is running out of everything soon. Is it sinking in how badly we have been misled about everything ? Remember the attempted Ocean Acidification Scam ? I wrote a Paper that Blew that off the Coral Reefs, which involved the reality that the Oceans have about 140 times more CO2 than the Atmosphere, withbtoo much locked away out of the Reach of life. Fact is, the Atmosphere is seriously suffering from a shortage of CO2, which is why the great majority of plant varieties are struggling with using far more water attempting to compensate, which is leaving them vulnerable to insect attacks and Plant Diseases. very easy to check, as is the fact that most annual CO2 comes from leaks through crustal cracks in the Ocean floors, amounting to about 90% CO2 Annually. Guess where most of the remainder comes from ? Not Humans, Not Cows farting, Not livestock in general, But From INSECTS ! Biggest Culprit insects ? Termites. I'm a tester too, and frankly, I thought that other tester in the interview, was far smarter, and a lot less Ideological Agenda Serving, than he's turned out to be. Who is paying him to Trot out such baseless Crap. If he's lied about that, what else is he lying about. I thought so much positive about that man, now he's blown it. I'm more than disappointed tbh. 😡
If the diesel is 10% efficient when charging the battery at least in sailboat ⛵️ applications it would make sense to “motorsail” to split the diesel output between propulsion and battery charging at the optimum efficiency for the diesel itself.
A second strategy, assuming a large solar array and a smart battery management system, is to divert excess amperage above what is required to maintain the battery at full charge, to the electric propulsion motor-generator. At a minimum this will reduce prop drag and in bright conditions it would add speed and upwind performance to whatever the sails produced.
Thank you for a great presentation! You have a nice way of putting things into perspective.
What about the 12 controllers shown at 59:50, are they connected to the same house bank? Do they need to be synchronized in a master-slave way or is it fine to just let them work individually?
The controllers are from Genasun. They do not need to be set up in a master/slave configuration. Essentially, as with any multi voltage regulator installation, so long as the conductors are appropriately sized ( so you don’t get confusing voltage drop issues) as the batteries come to a full state of charge the controller with the lowest voltage setting will start to ramp down first. An interesting question concerns overcurrent protection. If you parallel the output of several controllers, the combined output conductor may be significantly larger than the individual input conductors. If the output conductor is provided with overcurrent protection based on its ampacity this fuse or circuit breaker will have too high an amp rating for the input conductor to the controllers, in which case additional overcurrent protection will be required at, or close to, the input to each controller, or the input conductors will need to be increased is size (which will have the beneficial effect of minimizing voltage drop).
Nigel, would you be able to explain the pros and cons of LTO batteries, lithium titanate oxide? Thank you for the knowledge you share
Elados,
It has been a while since I looked at LTO because I haven’t seen these batteries in the marine world and my focus tends to be pragmatic - on what is either out there or I see as potentially coming. I don’t see any marine focus on LTO. Perhaps you would like to do some research and post the results!
Nigel
Hello Nigel, great presentation and so useful how people can do better decisions on investment in solar and batteries from near future. Thanks a lot!, Paul
Nigel, thank you for an awesome review of the current market/engineering position of battery technology and solar panels. I’m looking to commission an electrically powered Mumby 48 for delivery in June 2025 and this information was insightful. I’m honestly thinking of purchasing home solar panels and replacing as required, as some are around 650 watts per panel, with a combined total of 3-4 kw. I would appreciate any thoughts you may have.
Best Regards
An ex Royal Navy Weapons Engineer
Home solar panels can work fine. I have some on ‘Nada’ which are now 16 years old. The key is to ensure a rigid mount with no risk of impacts. The other thing I have noticed, having recently put 14 kW of solar on a building , is the panel structures do not appear to be as strong and rigid as they were some years ago so ensuring an adequate mount is more important than ever. Whatever is done, the panel’s warranty will almost certainly be voided.
Nigel
There is a near universal acceptance that climate change exists but close to no agreement on the actual cause. As an engineer I greatly respect, i recommend you check out the research of Professor Valentina Zharkova, who has made the most progress on this question.
Nigel, your using Li-ion, where you should state LiFePO4, that leads to idiots trying to put a very dangerous chemistry on a boat. As LiFePO4 batteries are way less (negligible) likely to have thermal runaway condition.
Every time someone gets, in-cautious, shall we say, in their choice of words, the marine electricians on the marine forums, I frequent, spend enormous amounts of time educating them, to keep them from putting Li-ion batteries and flaky Battery Management Systems, on their boats. Can anyone say Fire Hazard!
I am a proponent of the Firefly batteries, for the cost/benefit ratio.
Best wishes from the far North.
Hi Carl,
Thanks for the comment. We have a disagreement on this! I use ‘li-ion’ deliberately because although LiFePO4 is inherently safer than other li-ion chemistries from a chemistry point of view and theoretically less likely to enter thermal runaway, in practice there are LiFePO4 batteries that are less safe than, for example, a well-constructed NMC battery with an effective BMS. The quality of the construction, and the appropriateness of the BMS for the specific marine application, are, to my mind, more important than the chemistry. I have, for example, a number of photos of burned up LiFePO4 batteries, and knowledge of disastrous boat fires from LiFePO4 batteries. On the other side of the ledger, there are likely now hundreds of thousands of Torqeedo batteries in marine use (I have six on my boat which have all seen hard service over a number of years), all of which use the NMC chemistry, with no significant history of thermal runaway. It’s all in the engineering… Note that this is not an endorsement of Torqeedo - I do not do endorsements - but simply a recognition of their history with li-ion batteries.
My advice to anyone contemplating li-ion is to first and foremost look for compliance with the UL 1973 standard. This is an aggressive abuse-testing standard. In my opinion, it is the gold standard with respect to li-ion batteries. If a battery can pass UL 1973, it will be safe on a boat in pretty much all circumstances. Note that my Torqeedo batteries are not UL 1973 certified. In the absence of UL 1973 certification, I recommend to only buy from a quality marine manufacturer with an extensive history of supplying reliable li-ion batteries.
There is no way I would put a ‘drop-in’ lithium-ion battery in my boat, regardless of whether or not it is LiFePO4, that is neither UL 1973 certified, nor from a reputable, long-standing marine manufacturer. If I lose this boat (I am currently cruising in the ‘Spanish Rias’), I will never again get another anywhere near as perfect as this one!
Nigel
This have bean edvanced mr expert.
Hybrid electric 🎉
Hybrid solar and diesel electric engine on 70kw feks
I dont care how good lead acid says they will get. that door is closing permanently, very quickly for many boaters including myself, as we have already upgraded to LifePO4 or will fairly soon. The trauma of owning lead acid (i even have a failed Firefly) was too great to overcome. It feels to me they are wasting valuable resources trying to squeeze just a few more drops of water from the stone.
Lead acid batteries are still the best choice for engine starter batteries.
@@bitsurfr46 Yes, i agree. I do still have a lead acid starter battery as well. I should have mentioned i was talking about house banks.
@joesmith1142 The primary barrier to owning a LiFeP2O4 battery was the cost. I don't understand how Battleborn and Dakota can continue to charge over $900 for a 100AH battery when you can get a Chinese one with good reviews for under $250. Even the last few months have seen significant declines. In June of this year, I bought a Redodo 200AH Plus for $649. I saw a sale price recently of $499. That's actually cheaper per usable watt hour than an AGM!
@@bitsurfr46 Yeah i wonder the same myself. My feeling is that they invested in Lithium early but were unlucky with their timing. I dont think anyone thought LifePo4 would advance so quickly and become so cheap. I was in the same boat. I was initially (a little over a year ago) going to spend upwards of 5K for 300Ah of lithium from Lithionics. I just spend 1.2K FOR 300 Ah's of lithium from Epoch with performance specs that blow away the Lithionics battery. I feel bad for them and hope they can survive, but its hard to compete with China on pricing when they make the cells.
Hull design needs to improve, hydrofoil or trimeran hull will help and can resist rough seas better. Ships should stop using monohull design jts inferior and energy inefficient. Monohull is retarded progress.
Why not magneto hydogenic propulsion?✌️❤️🇬🇧