Swiss Solar Powered Catamaran Finishes 'Round the World Tour 110
Posted
by
timothy
from the honestly-they-were-just-sick-of-mountains dept.
from the honestly-they-were-just-sick-of-mountains dept.
First time accepted submitter wokie78 writes "The PlanetSolar, a Swiss solar powered catamaran, has just arrived to Monaco (French original), its initial port of departure, after finishing its voyage around the world which it started in September 2010. Its five-member crew completed a 60,006 km trip fully powered by 537 square meters of solar panels, which produced from 500 to 600 kw/h in fair weather — which meant it could go for 300 km on a single charge. Everything on the boat was solar powered."
kW/h? (Score:3, Informative)
That's a new unit, the kilowatt per hour, basically an energy acceleration!
I guess the real number is 500-600 kWh per day, given 1 kW/m^2 of solar constant, 14% conversion efficiency and 7-8 hours of full sunlight (morning and evening weighing less, I suppose). That's anyway a 23 kW day average in power production.
Re:kW/h? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.planetsolar.org/the-boat [planetsolar.org]
Surface area of solar modules: 537 m2
PV panel efficiency: 18.8 %
Installed PV power: 93.5 kW (127.0 HP)
*Puissance moteur maximale: 120 kW
Average engine consumption: 20 kW (26.8 HP)
*Maximum motor output
Redundant, we have already solved this problem (Score:4, Informative)
2 of these http://chetcomarine.com/coleman130wsolarpanel.aspx [chetcomarine.com], 1 of these http://www.wholesalesolar.com/products.folder/wind-folder/airx48marine.html [wholesalesolar.com].
Replace my 30 hp Yanmar Diesel with an electric motor. I really only use it for docking and mooring, I'll luff through the doldrums. I worry more about too much wind rather than not enough.
Double my current 6 6v golf cart batteries. and I could circumnavigate in comfort, and use all my gadgets.
and I'd need a new boat, my little Pearson is fun for the coast but I think the ocean would break her
Just saying that we have better ways to perform the task already.
Re:Even better (Score:4, Informative)
There's also towing generators for sailboats that have been around forever. When you have a nice amount of wind and are cruising along you throw the generator off the back on a line and it charges the batteries as it's towed along. They're very common amongst boaties.