One of the most potentially exciting developments to emerge last year was the Voller Emerald fuel cell, powered by LPG, which promises to provide clean, green energy for long distance cruisers, keeping batteries topped up without the need for running the engine, or noisy diesel generators.
The fuel cell was given a meaningful and high profile trial when Voller Energy entered its own boat, the Beneteau Oceanis 411 Emerald in the ARC, crossing the Atlantic from Las Palmas in the Canaries to St Lucia in the Caribbean in 19days.
Mark Tilley, marine sales specialist at Voller Energy, skippered the yacht on what he described as a useful and important engineering trial.
“The ARC was a very successful exercise for Voller Energy's prototype Emerald fuel cell. We gained useful data in terms of engineering feedback. Equally importantly, we were able to gain data that will be helpful to our customers,” he said.
“For the bulk of the trip we were able to use (and rely on) the fuel cell. During this period we had plenty of power available and were able to run any electrical or electronics systems we needed without having to worry about how much power was being used.
“Consequently, we kept a full range of Raymarine kit on line including two E80 displays, autopilot, and radar. We also kept the SSB, Iridium and VHF on standby, and were able to have a laptop on for the majority of the trip.
“As well as the navigation equipment, we could keep the fridge on and most importantly our flat screen TV was available for our evening movie each night! The electric halyard winch also came in very handy as we were putting reefs in and out all the time.
“This trip was the first time I have used the prototype Emerald fuel cell system extensively offshore, and as a user it was my first real chance to assess the benefits it brings. The first and most obvious one was its near silent operation.
“I tended to sleep in the aft quarter cabin alongside the engine box and the other side of the plywood fuel cell locker bulkhead. Sleeping in this cabin with the engine on for propulsion or battery charging often impacts on sleep, what with the heat and noise, but I have to say that the fuel cell was completely non-intrusive.
“As a user, I also learnt that we are currently expecting in the region of 300 grams per kwh of LPG consumption. However, whilst I have been basing my calculations on purely using the fuel cell it was interesting that in reality we did use the engine for propulsion on a few occasions. I am sure that this will be similar to a retail customer's use of the boat, i.e. motoring out of the harbour or during periods of no wind.
“The reality is, of course, that running the engine puts a fair bit of power back into the batteries, certainly enough to significantly extend the operating time of the fuel cell with the boat's standard LPG capacity. Voller Energy will be marketing the fuel cell as an intelligent power management system and as such it will allow the boat to use available power from the engine, solar, wind or shore etc and will only switch on when it is required.”
In fact the fuel cell developed a fault and was shut down during the final stages of the race.
“Once we had the fault code and closed the system down I had to be a lot more selective in terms of power management. We switched off the E80's and cancelled movie nights and we needed to be a lot stricter regarding interior reading lights and their use,” said Mark.
“As we were pretty much out of fresh produce, we also turned the fridge off. The priority really became the pilot which we kept up with by running the engine for a couple of hours a day to top up the batteries. I would say that the loss of the fuel cell affected morale more than anything, because we had got used to our creature comforts and taking these away after a couple of weeks on a small boat made a difference to our quality of life!
“The ARC Rally also allowed us to confirm that Voller Energy's Emerald fuel cell system can support an air-conditioning unit at sea, providing comfort cooling. Upon our arrival in St Lucia we trialled the fuel cell with a 9000 Btu air-conditioning unit, which worked exceptionally well. Whilst it didn't give ice cold air, it did give us radically reduced, pleasant living temperatures down below and was a real success.”
The Voller Energy team are now making the final adjustments to the fuel cell system before the commercial launch of the product this year.
The company explained that an accelerometer (measuring acceleration in G units) was carried onboard Emerald over the 3,000 nautical mile passage from Lisbon via Gran Canaria to St Lucia in order to collect a range of data for analysis in the UK based Voller Energy laboratory.
Data across a range of conditions from storm force winds to becalmed periods was measured every 30 seconds; monitoring angle of heel, pitching bow to aft of the boat and vertical upward and downward movement.
Raw data from when the fuel cell switched itself on was plotted against the g force of the boat. It showed that the boat and Emerald fuel cell prototype withstood a maximum force of 7 G while at sea. The forces exerted on the fuel cell were as a series of short sharp shocks, attributed to the high winds experienced in the 2007 ARC Rally.
“The prototype fuel cell withstood some very testing offshore conditions shown by the analysis of our data,” said Mark. “The Voller Energy team are happy with the engineering trials of the fuel cell and the benefits which the fuel cell provided during the trip offering increased power availability. The prototype has exceeded our expectations in an offshore environment.
“During the St Lucia stopover Voller Energy tested out air conditioning units under tropical conditions and proved that smaller units than those traditionally fitted to 40 foot yachts can adequately cool the interior.
“Leading boat builders are already moving towards use of smaller, more efficient air-conditioning systems at an average 9000 Btu for a yacht of 40 feet. The Emerald fuel cell system can efficiently cope with the power supply demand for a 9000 Btu air-conditioning system.
“Voller Energy is very confident in continuing their development into the greener power solution in the marine industry.”
