Early tech adopters are investing in a recent toy: solar-powered electric yachts.
Across the globe superyachts are already essential for today’s wealthy and famous. There are some 5,555 of them navigating the world’s oceans and seas, in accordance with SuperYacht Times’ State of Yachting Report.
Recent buyers are overwhelmingly American, with the report finding that 30% come from North America.
While glamorous, the boating industry takes an enormous toll on the environment, releasing carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides into our air and waterways.
To mitigate the environmental impact, some vessels have began adopting electric power sources. In Sweden, ForSea Ferries converted two 364-foot ferries from diesel engines to battery-powered versions. Nevertheless, each ferry has 640 batteries that weigh nearly 200 kilos each, significantly increasing the load of the vessels.
In contrast, some corporations have implemented solar-powered systems, which could potentially reduce that excessive weight. The marketplace for solar-powered boats is projected by Allied Market Research to grow 14% by 2031 to $2.4 billion.
Mike Horn, an expert explorer and adventurer who has traveled to the North Pole on a trimaran sailing vessel, is a proponent of this kind of modern shipbuilding.
“Electric yachts are the brand new generation of yachting,” he said. “I feel electric yachts and electric motors might be the essential propulsion of enjoyment yachts and even cargo vessels within the near future.”
Silent Yachts, based in Austria, and Poland’s Sunreef Yachts are two corporations leading the event of this recent technology.
Each corporations use an analogous technology, during which the solar panels harvest energy from the sun to recharge the battery. The lithium batteries also power onboard necessities like air con and lighting. Within the event that the sun is not strong enough, each vessel has a backup diesel generator that routinely recharges the battery.
“After we began constructing these yachts, many other boat builders told us there is no such thing as a need for such a yacht,” said Silent Yachts CEO and co-founder Michael Köhler. “Everybody knows that it is not a distinct segment anymore. It’s the brand new mass market.”
Silent Yachts builds yachts from the bottom up and sometimes refers to itself because the “Tesla of the seas.” Köhler, alongside his wife Heiki, founded the corporate in 2009. Since then, it’s delivered nearly 20 fully electric yachts and currently has over 30 in production in its shipyards in Italy and Turkey.
The corporate says it has an order book of 160 million euros ($168 million), with prices starting from 3.2 million euros for its 60-foot yacht to 30 million euros for the fully equipped version of its 120-foot vessel.
“We have now the following generation of solar panels coming to the market, the following generation of electrical batteries coming to the market, and the following generation of electrical motors,” said Stephan Kress, chief innovation officer at Silent Yachts. “The advantage, which is already there, of electrical yachting will turn into greater and larger.”
Sunreef has been constructing yachts for over 20 years and its clients include celebrities like tennis star Rafael Nadal and Formula One driver Fernando Alonso. The corporate incorporates integrated solar panels into its yachts, which it calls a “unique” feature.
“The goal of the solar panel was to find a way to integrate them into the entire structure of the boat,” said Nicola Lapp, Sunreef co-founder and chief technology officer. “The solar panel on our boat might be positioned anywhere, even on curved surfaces on the hull side.”
Sunreef has two shipyards in Gdansk, Poland, and a 3rd within the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, where it says it has around 60 yachts in production. It does nearly all of its production in-house, including making its own solar panels.
“The worth range really will depend on the customization of the yacht,” said Lapp. “The smallest boat is around 1.5 million euros and on the upper range there really isn’t any limit. The costliest boat that we have now sold is around 60 million euros.”
To this point, the corporate says it has built over 300 yachts, with 30 being fully electric, and half of current production is either electric or a hybrid eco model.
A very important feature of the brand new technology, in accordance with each Silent Yachts and Sunreef, is the relative simplicity of its day-to-day maintenance.
“They haven’t any moving parts,” said Kress. “The electrical motors, they’re maintenance free. The one things that you just would want to keep up on the boat are heat exchangers and the backup generator, which could be very limited.”
Nevertheless, the technology does pose challenges for corporations trying to adopt it for giant industrial vessels like cargo or cruise ships.
“We expect there’s a sweet spot for solar electric boats between 50 and 120 feet,” said Kress. “When you make the boats so much greater, the advantage of solar diminishes because you have got a limited amount of power.”
Horn, the explorer, added that electric yachts “do have their place” out there.
“But that alternative energy sources, like hydrogen, would find a way to permit our vessel to go further,” he said.