Branch hosts sustainable boating forum
THE IWA’s Birmingham, Black Country & Worcester branch recently held a hybrid in person/virtual forum on sustainable boating.
It was organised by Neil Cocksedge, who is in the process of moving from a steam-powered narrowboat to a new electric boat – a serial hybrid. His steam narrowboat, Tixall, has been described as one of the greenest on the system as it burns carbon-neutral wood briquettes.
Caroline Badger and Rob Howdle from Ortomarine described their comparative trials last year involving three diesel, two parallel hybrid and three serial hybrid boats over a 16-mile river and canal route.
A parallel hybrid has a conventional diesel engine coupled to a motor/ generator with a battery bank so that the propellor can be driven by the diesel or the electric motor, or the diesel can charge the batteries. In a serial hybrid the propulsion is always from the motor, drawing electricity from the batteries.
The batteries can be charged by solar, a generator or the mains when in a marina. Direct comparison between the three systems is complex and will depend for example on whether solar panels are fitted, but the trials suggested that a parallel hybrid could use two-thirds of the energy of pure diesel and a serial hybrid with solar panels as little as a third as that of a pure diesel.
Ortomarine has decided to only build boats with some form of electric propulsion. Its boats report their energy usage and are demonstrating the value of solar panels as an energy source.
David Struckett, a member of IWA’s Sustainable Propulsion Group, gave an update on its work. It has covered the technologies above, but is also looking further ahead to the provision of electric charging points and hydrogen as a fuel source. As the number of liveaboards increases environmentally friendly heating becomes a more important issue, and dredging will also help save fuel.
The broad conclusion is that awareness of the issues is rising and progress is being made. But it is not all straightforward as the recent setbacks with HVO fuel availability have shown. The branch has plans for another forum in a couple of years.