alt Hacker NewsThe point isn’t to power the main drive, the point is to preserve energy used elsewhere on the ship.
My experience sailing and dealing with vessels from 30ft to 180ft give me a perspective that you probably don’t.
Providing solar panels along the roof would give the ship a few KWh of power that would otherwise be drawing from the main batteries. This would extend the range of the ship by 5-10%.
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s1artibartfast • yesterday at 7:42 PM
Where are you getting your 5-10% numbers from?
The ship battery is 40,000 kwh and uses at least 10,000 kwh per crossing, with 10 minutes to recharge. A handful of kwh are negligible because this isn't a sailboat.
The electricity sector in Uruguay has 98% renewable power
For how much cost? The range of the ship is already handled well by the batteries. An extra 5-10% isn’t going to meaningfully add value nor reduce fuel costs. There’s no way to recapture the capital expenditure such solar panels would require.