Feasibility on introducing an alternative solar powered propelling system for multi-day fishing boats in Sri Lanka

This paper presents a feasibility study on introducing an alternative solar powered propelling mechanism to multi-day fishing boats. Since solar energy is readily available on the sea throughout the year, this free energy could be utilized to power multi-day fishing vessels. Multi-day boats have large deck area where solar panels can be mounted above without much effort. This project involves studying the amount of power that can be generated using onboard solar panels and implementing an independent propelling system to propel the boat. A chain drive system was designed to propel the boat, when the batteries are fully charged, from an electric motor using the same propeller. A 60 feet multi-day fishing boat built by a local boat manufacturer was chosen for the study. The service speed of the boat was around 6 knots with the electric motor and the duration of cruising is 1 hour per day with around 11 hours of charging. 350-watt Mono-crystalline PV module, 75 kW HVH type motor and 10 kWh Lithium-ion Battery packs were chosen for the study. From the calculations, it was obtained that the boat has 30 PV modules (10.5 kW), 5 batteries (47 kWh) and will save around 6475 liters of diesel per annum and around 17094 kg of carbon emissions per annum. The boat dimensions are 20-meter length of water line, 5.51 meter of beam, 1.8 meter of draught, and 77 ton of total displacement with the PV system net present value of USD 12445 for 20 years of operation and a payback period of around 8.2 years.