Smart energy systems approach to zero emissions long-range sailing vessels

Transportation is undergoing an electric revolution and the marine sector is missing many of the advances made in other industries. The critical roadblock is the virtual actor of safety. To date, there is no viable replacement for the range, comfort, and safety provided by a tank of diesel.

The question this research asks is could fully integrating transport, storage, and eliminating critical excess energy within the closed loop of the sailing vessel increase comfort, safety, range, and speed? This paper leverages the smart energy systems approach and is based on existing technology, including the propeller. However, it applies a new approach to driveline design and operation as a basis to model energy performance.

In our model, wind is the primary energy source converted into electric energy via hydro-generation; the point of departure from existing systems is the ability to fully manage critical excess energy in an integrated smart energy system. Energy management is carried out by a new performance algorithm called Charge Made Good (CMG), that allows the vessel to predict the battery state at the journey’s end and maintain this prediction during periods of intermittent energy production from forecast variance. The model shows that fossil fuels used for safety and range in direct-drive and electric-hybrid systems can be eliminated, with an improved level of amenity aboard and an improved safety factor using the smart energy systems approach. It is the first academic research to address the safety and comfort of zero-emissions recreational craft rather than technical but unusable/uneconomic solutions.