Geplaatst op

Fuel Cell Sailing Boat

Sailing is all about wind power. Or is it? Leaving and entering the harbour even the smallest sailing boats often use petrol engines to maneuver. Electric motors offer a very good alternative but the batteries mostly limit the radius of the boat.

There, a zero emission range extender kicks in: a fuel cell on hydrogen.

An electric motor offers several advantages:

  • next to zero noise
  • no vibrations
  • no soot
  • no odour
  • last but not least: environmentally friendly!

The fuel cell removes the only hurdle of electric engines: the limited radius. This fuel cell teams with Linde’s Genie cylinders that carry at least 7 KiloWatt hour of net energy. (If you need and actually use the warmth of the fuel cell you can double the energy content). This will enlarge the capacity from 1kWh upto 7kWh per cylinder! And these cylinders can be rented and exchanged all around the world.

Geplaatst op

Hydrogen as storage medium for wind energy

We do not yet have green hydrogen in abundance, but with the emergence of large wind farms at sea, the need for green hydrogen and therefore its production will increase incrementally in the coming years. We are going to see a revolution similar to the invention of the steam engine or the introduction of the internal combustion engine. As an example how fast things can change: around the year 1900 the largest problem on public roads in New York City were horse droppings. You did not hear anyone talking about it just a few years later.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/renewable-hydrogen-could-be-competitive-in-a-decade-researchers-say/
We wrote this article in response to the article as mentioned above.

Am I saying that battery cars have no future? In the contrary. Battery cars and hydrogen cars will soon be driving around next to each other on the road. A lot of rides can be driven without hydrogen, which mainly offers a larger range and can be refueled quickly. That will offer a solution for taxis, police and heavier transport as well as ships and aircraft.

Another aspect that is often forgotten is that hydrogen can really help us make the zero emission energy transition AND make it affordable. I started with that in the first paragraph. We will need to store energy in large quantities (for the winter, export, use elsewhere). Batteries, and in particular our electricity network, are not or only to a very limited extent suitable for storage of energy, certainly if large distances and or longer periods of time need to be bridged.

Geplaatst op

Energy Innovators

Here at DEOdrive we consider ourselves energy innovators. Whether for vehicles or off grid locations, in fact anywhere a power plug is unavailable, we provide engineering and turn key solutions to get you powered up again.