World’s First Solar-powered Ship by Nippon Yusen KK and Nippon Oil Corp
- Posted by Bill Belew in Eco-friendly, Energy, Solar energy, Transportation
Aug 29,2008
Nippon Yusen KK and Nippon Oil Corp are working on the world’s first solar powered ship … well, at least partially solar powered, they are saying. What? A hybrid ship? The two companies want to put solar panels on top of the 60,000-ton ship that are capable of generating 40 kilowatts of electricity each.
The ship will carry Toyota cars. Is anybody surprised?
Fuel savings are expected to be in the neighborhood of 6.5% and carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 1-2% or 20 tons per year. It will cost Nippon Usen about $1.4 million to create the solar panel system.
The ship is expected to be completed by December with damage to the panels from salt and vibration the biggest obstacles.
A Nippon Oil dude says, “If it’s possible, we want to aim for the full commercialization of the system in the next three to five years.” Yeah, we got to make money out of this operation, for sure.
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One Response to “World’s First Solar-powered Ship by Nippon Yusen KK and Nippon Oil Corp”
Of course, 6.5% of the fuel they use would come out to more than $1.4 million per year. Although it will cost money to install, it will save money in the long run. And in business terms, one year is not a very long run at all. Most businesses would be happy to see a return on an investment after 5 or 10 years.
The purpose of commercialising it is to make it easier to convince ship owners to fit the solar panel system to their cargo ships. The money they make will be a nice bonus but the environmental impact will be more important (at least to me).
I’m sure you’re already aware of the kite-powered cargo ships that save 30 - 50% of their fuel with an enormous kite that is automatically deployed from the bow of the ship.
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