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On 27/07/2017 at 08:37, Bromleyxphil said:

Given the "latest" already agreed to in 2007, announcement from our government yesterday.  Does anyone already have an electric or hybrid powered boat and if so how is it?

 

Do you mean a narrowboat or a GRP cruiser? 

Fully electric power is not viable at the moment as there are no charging points on the canals.

A hybrid narrowboat is a possibility as Beta (I think it is) make a diesel/electric hybrid engine/transmission quite well regarded. The fuel is 100% diesel though, discounting the trivial amount available via solar.

Why do you ask? For environmental reasons or to get free solar power? There isn't enough surface area on a NB roof to collect enough power to cruise the boat on a daily basis continually whatever the technology. If you want a liveaboard that moves infrequently then fully solar is viable on summer, but still not winter so you'll always need something diesel, or a shoreline for mains power. 

 

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Nobody has made yet, to my knowledge, a fully solar powered boat. Or by 'electric boat', did you simply mean one with an electric motor instead of diesel and recharged daily from regular shore-based charging points, the same way as an electric car?

If so, what would be the point of it? Atmospheric pollution is the reason for diesel cars being banned. The electricity still needs to be generated. CO2, Nox etc will still be produced, just not in our city centres. A non-problem on the canals.

Edited by Mike the Boilerman
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I was just trying to explore all of the options available at the moment as we are still planning.  Wish I had called to see the electric boat stand at Crick.  Is it not feasible to have a large battery bank supplied by a small generator supplemented by large solar array to drive an electric motor.....no gearbox required?

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18 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Nobody has made yet, to my knowledge, a fully solar powered boat. Or by 'electric boat', did you simply mean one with an electric motor instead of diesel and recharged daily from regular shore-based charging points, the same way as an electric car?

If so, what would be the point of it? Atmospheric pollution is the reason for diesel cars being banned. The electricity still needs to be generated. CO2, Nox etc will still be produced, just not in our city centres. A non-problem on the canals.

Article on Solar Powered Narrow Boat, not read it all so not sure if it worked!

http://solarpowerednarrowboat.blogspot.co.uk/

Tim

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17 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

If so, what would be the point of it? Atmospheric pollution is the reason for diesel cars being banned. The electricity still needs to be generated. CO2, Nox etc will still be produced, just not in our city centres. A non-problem on the canals.

A power station generating enough electricity to move a boat 20 miles produces a lot less pollution than running a diesel engine on the boat to mvoe it 20 miles. 

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On 27/07/2017 at 09:29, lulu fish said:

A power station generating enough electricity to move a boat 20 miles produces a lot less pollution than running a diesel engine on the boat to mvoe it 20 miles. 

 

Rubbish.

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52 minutes ago, Bromleyxphil said:

Given the "latest" already agreed to in 2007, announcement from our government yesterday.  Does anyone already have an electric or hybrid powered boat and if so how is it?

Some useful info here:

http://www.eboat.org.uk/

Forum member Rishworth_Bridge  has the electrically driven boat Ampere, might be worth contacting.

Tim

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We need to draw a distinction between 'electrically driven' using electricity generated on the boat using a combination of diesel and solar, and 'solar driven'. 

The former usually involves 99% diesel and 1% solar. the latter usually doesn't exist on closer investigation.

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35 minutes ago, lulu fish said:

A power station generating enough electricity to move a boat 20 miles produces a lot less pollution than running a diesel engine on the boat to mvoe it 20 miles. 

How do you work that out?

Over half of the energy in gas and around two thirds of the energy in nuclear or coal used to produce electricity is lost as waste heat. Then you have the inefficiencies in the transmission, charging and storage circuitry plus the motor used to drive the prop. So maybe an overall efficiency of 25%.

A low speed diesel engine is generally around 45% to 50% efficient. 

I think you need to research a bit into the subject.

Edited by WotEver
Tryping
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14 minutes ago, lulu fish said:

You might want to do a bit of research into this subject.

He does, I am building an electric broads cruiser, the EBA have given me useful information and Yahoo has a very good site on this.

I have used an Agni motor [original cedric lynch] and the gearbox is from Lynch with luck it will be under the floor so unlike the BMC its replacing it will occupy no living space. I should be able to put about 2 KW of solar on the roof and I will have a Kero powered whispergen for central heating/hot water and electric top up winter sun. I have decided on under floor heating with a Kero powered Rayburn royal for winter cooking and space heating.

The electric motor I am using is 93% efficient. in comparison low reving modern [for boats thats a joke] diesels are very very inefficient  lucky to be 15 -20% as they are nowhere near optimum power/torque at 1100 rpm! they are gross polluters as they have no CATS, EGRs  or DPFs and are nearly always running in locks electric doesnt in fact if its sunny it will be charging from the solar.

The problem is that people like what they have and when someone says they are going to take it away they invent thousands of reasons why its better than what is going to replace it! Just saying like

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5 minutes ago, peterboat said:

diesels are very very inefficient lucky to be 15 -20%

So about the same as a coal powered power station generating the energy, transmitting it across the country, losing some in the substation, losing more in the charger, inefficiencies in the battery and yet more losses in the motor then?

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They don't work simples!! Those that " nearly " work cost eighteen billion pounds to purchase and install and 14 billion to keep replacing batteries etc. Same with the silly cars. I often do a round trip of  300 miles in a day and a few times a year do one of 500 miles in the day sometimes more. I do this with one 5 minute fuel stop at a choice of thousands of petrol stations. Can any pro electric car owners " not hybrids " please as they basically run on an internal combustion engine let me know of any car that can do that journey without more than one stop of several hours each? and also I pay typicaly a couple of grand tops for my cars which last me ages at little cost ( Japanese usualy now ) and when will that cost of motoring be available to Joe Bloggs? will it be with his " affordable " housing that is presently being built? :rolleyes:

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59 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

We need to draw a distinction between 'electrically driven' using electricity generated on the boat using a combination of diesel and solar, and 'solar driven'. 

The former usually involves 99% diesel and 1% solar. the latter usually doesn't exist on closer investigation.

The Greenline I posted a link to can on a sunny day be driven entirely on electric generated by the solar array on the roof at speeds of up to 4 knots.

4 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

They don't work simples!! Those that " nearly " work cost eighteen billion pounds to purchase and install and 14 billion to keep replacing batteries etc. Same with the silly cars. I often do a round trip of  300 miles in a day and a few times a year do one of 500 miles in the day sometimes more. I do this with one 5 minute fuel stop at a choice of thousands of petrol stations. Can any pro electric car owners " not hybrids " please as they basically run on an internal combustion engine let me know of any car that can do that journey without more than one stop of several hours each? and also I pay typicaly a couple of grand tops for my cars which last me ages at little cost ( Japanese usualy now ) and when will that cost of motoring be available to Joe Bloggs? will it be with his " affordable " housing that is presently being built? :rolleyes:

I also don't think it works with cars but can see a market for hybrid boats.

There are an increasing number of hybrid hire boats on the Broads which seem to work well.

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1 hour ago, lulu fish said:

A power station generating enough electricity to move a boat 20 miles produces a lot less pollution than running a diesel engine on the boat to mvoe it 20 miles. 

 

1 hour ago, lulu fish said:

You might want to do a bit of research into this subject.

How about you providing a full and accurate explanation to a question instead of a short, meaningless and unexplained answer?

You obviously consider yourself to be an expert in this field so perhaps sharing that expertise would help us all.

 

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1 hour ago, Canal321 said:

Straight away I noticed the weasel words "capable of generating 6Kw" in respect of the solar panels. Arguably correct at noon on the equator but in the UK it has been reported here many times that 50% of that figure  is more likely in the UK during the peak summer months and for a lot of the year rather less, down to potentially only a few watts on  dark cloudy days in winter.

Add to that the added extra loads like the air con and probably several other mains devices most of us forgo on boats and I think its another "Polish Lady" type job.

I did see a narrowboat up north with two masts with 3 solar panels hanging from each plus panels along the cabin side and on the roof. I think that one may have successfully crawled around the system in summer but the masts would have to be taken down when moving.

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Actually Lulu Fish is probably right as far as the UK is concerned, as most of our electricity is generated by "clean" sources and coal accounts for a negligible proportion.  She was talking about pollution remember, not general efficiency which is more debatable.  The current enthusiasm for electric power assumes the electricity will increasingly come from renewables, together with a move towards decentralisation of power generation. 

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2 minutes ago, Neil2 said:

Actually Lulu Fish is probably right as far as the UK is concerned, as most of our electricity is generated by "clean" sources and coal accounts for a negligible proportion.  She was talking about pollution remember, not general efficiency which is more debatable.  The current enthusiasm for electric power assumes the electricity will increasingly come from renewables, together with a move towards decentralisation of power generation. 

Figures from the National Grid.

http://gridwatch.co.uk/

40% supply from gas and coal at midday.

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