Research Projects

There are a number of aspects of electric boating which remain poorly understood. It would be helpful if, as hobbyists and early adopters, we were able to explore more fully some of the following issues:

• Practical regeneration techniques and strategies
• Experiences with Lithium (LiPo) and other advanced batteries
• Typical solar panel output in different areas
• Typical wind generator output in different areas
• Applications of super and ultra-capacitors
• Real world power consumption data
• Off-grid strategies
• Real world charger performance
• Real world charge acceptance
• Fuel cells - there was an ambitious project several years ago called HaveBlue which was trying to develop a fully integrated fuel-cell powered boat based on a Catalina 42.

Nigel Calder is working on some of these issues - he's already published a few articles and hopefully we'll see more soon.