Solar powered cruise ships?

[fstuff1]

Since there's a Chief Engineer that regularly replies here, i thought i'd ask the question here:

Why not build a cruise ship partially powered by solar?

ie: power all Lights on board the ship and/or cabin a/c.

 

Put solar panels around the entire hull that's 25' or so above the water line.

That way tugboats and docking at the pier won't damage the panels.

 

Or is that too much wind drag, which uses more fuel which defeats the fuel savings?

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by fstuff1

[ChiefMateJRK]

With the amount of free, upward facing surface area you would probably generate enough electricity to keep my beer cold.

[JGmf]

Not a chief engineer, but worked in this area for a large university. 

 

Simply put: there isn't enough real estate on a ship to fit the massive number of panels needed to power the vessel. 

 

That said, battery technology and the future of electric engines on boats may be more feasible.

[hallux]

41 minutes ago, JGmf said:

That said, battery technology and the future of electric engines on boats may be more feasible.

These ships (or many of them) are already, effectively, diesel-electric anyway. 

 

and.. hi, neighbor!  I'm just North of Albany.

 

43 minutes ago, JGmf said:

Simply put: there isn't enough real estate on a ship to fit the massive number of panels needed to power the vessel. 

Something that could help - someone is developing panels that are sturdy enough to be used as roads, if they used those for the go-kart track that space can be used to benefit everyone.  That's not enough to generate the tens of kW needed to run the azipods but it can offset SOME of the electricity needs.

 

I agree, though, there simply isn't enough sun-facing space to be used for power generation unless you start putting canopies over the sundeck, and even that won't be enough.

[lixogab]

Encore has 5 engines totaling 76.7 MWt

A standard solar panel is about 300 Watts.

So you need around 256000 panels., not mentioning the batteries, their weight and the cost.

[KeithJenner]

4 hours ago, lixogab said:

Encore has 5 engines totaling 76.7 MWt

A standard solar panel is about 300 Watts.

So you need around 256000 panels., not mentioning the batteries, their weight and the cost.

Your point is clear, but out of interest what is the usual engine useage, for example when sailing between ports.

 

Im assuming that they are a long way from having all 5 engines at full power when sailing under normal conditions.

[TheGinBoy]

As a bit of an energy buff I think the most exciting steps for cruise ship power will be transparent photovoltaic (solar) panels/film.

 

They've been in the works for a few years now, and whilst they exist they're currently much less efficient (the amount of solar energy converted to DC) than your standard solar panel.

 

But once they're at an acceptable level of efficiency, and assuming they're robust enough for a life at sea, there's no reason every glass window, door, roof, atrium, canopy etc couldn't be covered in a transparent photovoltaic coating. Think about how much glass there is on a cruise ship.

As mentioned earlier there's no way this would be able to power the vessels movement, but it would be able to contribute significantly towards hotel operations. 

Edited April 7, 2022 by TheGinBoy

[chengkp75]

One of the RCI Oasis class ships started out with a solar panel array (since removed IIRC).  It was quite large, and only provided enough power to power the lights in the Boardwalk area of the ship.

 

Solar panels are "low density" generators, meaning you need a lot of area to generate a small amount of power.  You would likely need to cover the entire surface of the ship (and assume that all panels would see sun all the time) to power just the lights on the ship.

 

To use the example given of the Encore, just the hotel load (sitting in port) is around 9-10Mw, running one of the 3 smaller generators.  Given the average power density of solar panels at 5.25 square meters per 1 kwh, this requires 47,000 square meters of panels (that's 11.5 acres).  Lighting is probably around 1-2Mw, so going low end, you still require 5250 square meters or 1.25 acres.  AC is not parceled out as "cabin" and "other", it is done by large compressors that chill water, and that chilled water is pumped around the ship to cool the air.  These compressors are in the 1-2Mw size each, and there would likely be 2-3 of them running at all times.

 

That is all without adding propulsion.  "Typical" cruising speed power would be in the range of 40-50Mw (including hotel load), so solar is just not feasible.  Even if you made a "roof" that covered the entire ship of solar panels, that is only about 3.5 acres of panels.

[F27TW]

And besides .. what happens on a cloudy day when there's no sun?  😁

[PTC DAWG]

Rowing would be better.  

[Cruise Wonderland]

Although this is not related to NCL, but there has been a plan to build a solar-powered ship by the Japanese cruise line Peace Boat (a NGO to promote peace and human rights).

 

The project has been postponed for several times and a couple of years already. The latest news is that Peace Boat wish to have the ship to be delivered in 2027. Honestly I don't think we will see this vessel in reality eventually.

 

https://www.ship-technology.com/projects/peace-boats-ecoship/

 

[GUT2407]

Wonder how much cleaning they’d need with salt build up, friends had them in an ocean front home and while I don’t remember the exact numbers the drop in output after as little as a week was astounding.

[The Shrike]

Nuclear would be a better option.

[fstuff1]

2 hours ago, The Shrike said:

Nuclear would be a better option.

there's a reason why England went with conventional instead of nuclear for their new class of aircraft carriers.

 

costs

[chengkp75]

3 hours ago, The Shrike said:

Nuclear would be a better option.

 

44 minutes ago, fstuff1 said:

there's a reason why England went with conventional instead of nuclear for their new class of aircraft carriers.

 

costs

That's not entirely correct.  There are a host of reasons the UK didn't go for nuclear power for a surface ship, cost certainly one of them, but other major considerations were operating profile (distances, lack of catapults (no steam), less need for top speed to launch aircraft), lack of suitable nuclear shipbuilding capacity (the one yard doing this is booked solid for a decade building subs), lack of nuclear engineers (very small nuclear power industry base), and so on.

 

The major problems with nuclear cruise ships would be regulatory, with regards to passenger safety, and liability.  Anyone who cruised on a nuclear ship could in future claim that any illness was caused by exposure on the ship.  An altogether terrible idea.

 

I see the future of shipping going to fuel cells, but we are far from the technology to get enough power into a small enough volume to  fit into a fiscally feasible ship.

 

[Penfold77]

Solar panels on cruise ships could indeed help power some of the onboard systems like lights and cabin A/C, reducing the overall fuel consumption. However, there are a few challenges to consider. The main issue is the size and efficiency of the panels needed to generate significant power. Cruise ships consume a lot of energy, and the surface area available for solar panels might not be enough to make a huge impact. Additionally, the increased wind drag from the panels could offset some of the fuel savings, but this could potentially be mitigated with smart design and placement of the panels.

I installed solar panels on my house last year, and the experience has been very positive. The main reasons I went solar were to reduce my energy bills and decrease my carbon footprint. The upfront cost was significant, but the long-term savings and environmental benefits made it worth it. For your idea to work on a cruise ship, you would need a similar cost-benefit analysis to ensure it's practical. If the technology continues to improve and panel efficiency increases, it could become a more viable option for large-scale applications like cruise ships. You can find more information on the latest advancements in solar technology and their applications here.

Edited August 2 by Penfold77

[WarfRatWA]

On 4/12/2022 at 2:37 PM, The Shrike said:

Nuclear would be a better option.

I think hydrogen will be the next iteration 

[Laszlo]

LNG is the latest thing for cruise ships, probably one of the cleanest burning fuels. My company has a large solar array to help offset our electric. It's pretty large at 375MG and still only supplies about 75% of our electric use. 11 years ago it cost 780K, just last month with finally broke even on it

[1bighund]

Physics education is lacking

[chengkp75]

8 hours ago, Penfold77 said:

Solar panels on cruise ships could indeed help power some of the onboard systems like lights and cabin A/C, reducing the overall fuel consumption.

Oasis of the Seas originally had solar panels to power the lights in the boardwalk area.  Not sure if they are still there, but it didn't go to any other ships because they were not cost effective.

 

Considering that cabin AC is produced by a 2Mw, 10,000 volt chiller, and the chilled water being pumped to the cabins by 120kw 480v pumps, solar power would do almost nothing for this.

[chengkp75]

5 hours ago, Laszlo said:

LNG is the latest thing for cruise ships, probably one of the cleanest burning fuels.

While LNG is clean burning, it is not the end all to be all that environmentalists make it out to be.  There is a thing called "methane slip", which is the amount of methane (gaseous LNG) lost in spillage and evaporation from wellhead to combustion engine.  Methane slip is considerable, especially when you consider that methane is 200 times as damaging as CO2 over 20 years, and 80 times as dangerous over 100 years.  Even cruise ships storing LNG in onboard tanks experience some methane slip from tank venting.

[chengkp75]

8 hours ago, Penfold77 said:

Cruise ships consume a lot of energy, and the surface area available for solar panels might not be enough to make a huge impact.

This is the main problem, ships are "high density" power users, while solar is a "low density" power producer.  A community solar project here that went online 3 years ago, generates 4Mw and covers 17 acres (74,000 sq ft).  A medium sized cruise ship generates 60-80Mw.

[GALSews]

41 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

This is the main problem, ships are "high density" power users, while solar is a "low density" power producer.  A community solar project here that went online 3 years ago, generates 4Mw and covers 17 acres (74,000 sq ft).  A medium sized cruise ship generates 60-80Mw.

Putting that in context my 1-year old 39 panels are producing 2.2kW at the moment as a large cloud is passing overhead. A few seconds ago they were at 11.8 kW, (The 15-year old panels we replaced because they were defective would have been doing about 4 kW at the high end.) To get to 60 Mw, you'd need 508 of my roofs which given the size of my house agrees quite well with the chief's estimate of 17 acres and that assumes no clouds and optimum sun angle. With the cloud blocking, you'd need over 5 times as much surface area.