Electric Retrofit?

[BelgianExile]

Hi all. Apologies if this has been  asked before (I did look!) and I don’t want to start a debate about electricity infrastructure on the broads, but has anyone got any experience of having an electric engine retrofitted to a broads boat? I’m interested in cost, who fitted it, pros & cons.

Thanks in advance.

[Spooky]

Hi Belgian Exile

A friend of mine, Josh Masters, is running a company that specializes in retrofitting electric motors to existing boats, https://lightningcraft.co.uk/

Give him a call and I am sure he will be happy to talk to you about what is involved etc

 

 

 

[socrates]

Not sure if the owner of Dawn Star is on here, but someone might know a bit more about the history of this boat which had an electric motor fitted several years back. 

[BrundallNavy]

The broads are not yet set up for a reliable service for charging an electric boat, they are fine for day boats that return to base where a supply is guaranteed but the chances of finding an empty mooring spot in the height  of summer with an available Charging socket is almost impossible.  

[floydraser]

I understand there is one along the jetty from me, so that'll be around the 37ft size. I know no more than that, other than there is "Amp.." in the name. 

[TheQ]

There aren't the charging points on the broads unless you like queueing in the summer.

So we've got a 4kw generator . Very lucky to get a £10,000 generator with only 150hours on the clock for £2000.

Batteries yes you can go lithium, but that's a very much more expensive solution, again I was lucky to get a set of lead acid with a lot of life left for their scrap value. Some generators don't like lithium they can't control the current correctly.

With electric motor, all controls, 4 maximum size solar panels that could fit on the roof. It cost me around £10,000 to have fitted by a boat yard. But now I'd say £15,000.

Range, the boat has about 500 amp hours of a 24 battery 48v pack  that could take us from Horning to Potter but wouldn't get us back. So for a journey like that, the generator is immediately wound up. Saves battery cycles... Short journeys maybe a Mile or so, we just go under battery power and let the solar panels charge up the system.

If you want a reasonable range of battery only cruising it's likely you'd need a 1000amp hour battery  pack, with full charging facilities at home.

 

[annv]

Or Solar panels that CAN charge for 18hrs a day for free. John

[TheQ]

11 minutes ago, annv said:

Or Solar panels that CAN charge for 18hrs a day for free. John

Unfortunately, you can't cover the boat with enough solar panels to go cruising every day, you'd need several days parked up recharging the batteries between not very long cruises.

[JanetAnne]

And between October and March solar availability is limited. Today there was just 6 hours of enough light to register anything on the charge panel at all. 

[BelgianExile]

That’s all really useful intel, thanks. Still okay thinking about it, but very handy info there.

[Ray]

Could wind augment solar to a usable degree? We have plenty of that day and night!

How about small turbines on the hull?

I should point these literally are just thinking out loud questions, I seriously don't have a clue!

[JanetAnne]

Hot air powered is the way to go. There's plenty of it about 

Wind is certainly an excellent choice and works well with solar. On those hot still days solar is working hard but over winter there's plenty of wind and a shortage of daylight. Wind turbines that produce enough to charge a boats battery bank up though are a big piece of kit to have up there. Look out Potter!

[grendel]

for those that follow ship happens, they fitted a wind turbine recently in one of their videos, from memory it was a 2m turbine, and in light wind was barely keeping up output wise with the solar panels, in november, that said wind turbines work day and night, so effectively complement the solar.

[Mouldy]

It’ll be a long time before the infrastructure for recharging electric boats is in place on the rivers.  Let’s be fair, it’s not really sufficient for the number of electric cars on the roads, given the way they’re being promoted and sold, never mind for boats!!  We called into the Golden Arches for breakfast on our way to see the family on Saturday. It is a relatively new restaurant and has two electric car charging points in the car park.  When we arrived at around 09:30, both bays were occupied and with two further vehicles waiting.

Things need to happen very quickly with regard to installing adequate facilities around the country if the dream of banning the sale of fossil fuelled cars in eight years time is going to happen, or queuing for a few minutes to refuel your car, could turn into a couple of hours.

 

[Vaughan]

Funny no-one seems to have mentioned pure wind power yet - sails!

Wherries don't have batteries, or engines but they have been happily getting about all over the Broads for hundreds of years.

[grendel]

the hotel complex where we held our christmas party had electric charging points, there were 3 hotels on site as well as spa, golf activities and watersports, in the car park of one of the hotels was a line of about 12 tesla charging points, in the  car parks of the other two were other charging points, about 12 at each hotel, each hotel had accomodation for about 200 guests, so 36 charging points for 600 guests, and I have to say, that was an unusually high percentage of charging points, so assuming that some guests travelled together, there was provision for approximately 1 in 10 vehicles to be charged overnight. which was good, as many hotels dont even have 1 charging point yet.

on this basis there is a long way to go before the infrastructure is in place on our roads, generally waterways lag behind the highways by some 20-40 years on new innovation.

solar power, well recently on a narrow boat youtube i watched they did a trial of electric narrow boats, and the purely electric boat with solar charging, after a full day cruising required 3 days good solar to recharge the battery, and its 60 foot length had the entire roof covered with solar panels, about twice what you could fit on a modern broads cruiser.

with most broads moorings being 24 hour, this would severely limit your cruising range if you were required to move each day and could not get an electrical hookup, trips north to south and vice versa would be a week long planning logistical nightmare hoping for a free electrical hookup at the end of each days cruise.

then you would have people overstaying on the mooring with the excuse that they were not able to get charged, which would then knock on to the next boat requiring a hookup.

[oldgregg]

I've said on here before (with a fair bit of maths behind it) that you need about 300kWh of battery to achieve what you'd get from having 100 litres of diesel aboard.

At current prices that's going to cost a lot of cash before you've even thought about a drivetrain or the control systems.

Glad to see that someone like Lightning Craft has set up in East Anglia, though. There are small businesses like this all over Europe and they're making electric doable. Up to 32hp would work for some Broads boats, although running a 48v system is an interesting choice.

[Bikertov]

I think the difference is that with Broads boats, the distances and speeds needed along with many moorings, it is more feasible than maybe other waterways and offshore boating.

More being a relative term in this context.

[annv]

Where as a electric hire boat will be unsuitable  a private electric boat can be,  we often moor for several days and find a solar panel cope without having to plug in,  having done all the broads many times we dont have to sail every day and try to do the lot in a week or so. Horses for coares.  John

[Smoggy]

I think any electric boat would do well to carry an auxiliary outboard as a back up.

[annv]

Hi Smoggy a small  48v DC diesel geny like a Panda would work a lot better and give free hot water. John

[Vaughan]

27 minutes ago, annv said:

and give free hot water.

Very important point, on an electric powered boat. If you want a shower, it's either that or have an immersion heater, plugged into shore power overnight.

[Smoggy]

So who is going to design a heat pump that can cool the fridge and heat the calorifier at the same time?

The theory should work to some degree but I'm no-where near clever enough for the maths involved, there's always the river as an extra energy source when the fridge is down to temp.

[BelgianExile]

5 hours ago, annv said:

Where as a electric hire boat will be unsuitable  a private electric boat can be,  we often moor for several days and find a solar panel cope without having to plug in,  having done all the broads many times we dont have to sail every day and try to do the lot in a week or so. Horses for coares.  John

That's kind of where we are - I'm not looking to be able to 'do' the entire network in a week, but to bimble down the river for a couple of hours, have lunch somewhere, and then bimble back to our mooring. Maybe in the summer we might go a bit further afield over a night or two, but we don't need to be able to cruise for a week without refuelling / recharging.

Interesting discussion though - I do think it's when, not if, though. Prices at the moment are a bit prohibitive, but I guess a large part of that may be an early adopter tax. There is an appeal of having something that's arguably kinder to the environment (notwithstanding disposal issues) and with much less maintenance.

Thanks all for the input.

[BroadAmbition]

Dawn Star has recently changed ownership.  When I talked to the new owners they mentioned that they were considering reverting her back to dyno diesel - Seems more practical to me

Griff