Solar vs wind vs hydro

[bergius]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Does the frame need to come down to go from wintering in Berlin to the Baltic? A single panel would be easier to take down out of the way of the mast.

We remove the panels from the frame when taking down the mast, and then use the frame as the aft support for the mast:



With one panel we've then been keeping the panel on the deck for the canal trip. With two panels we might be able to mount them back on the arch on both sides of the mast when doing this. That would leave more deck space free for fenders, fenderboards, etc that you need in locks.

Most bridges on the way have about 4m of clearance. There is one 3m bridge in Poland, but it opens every few hours, and they're anyway building a newer taller one to replace it.

Originally Posted by Pete7

Have been reading your website, that would be an interesting trip we could also do, if we ever retire

I can definitely recommend the Swedish and Finnish archipelago as a cruising grounds. You need to pay quite a lot of attention to navigation between the rocks, but there are months' worth of sheltered waters, secluded anchorages, nature trails, etc.

And generally the infrastructure is excellent. Most of the popular anchorages have pump-outs, fire pits (with firewood!) and so forth. Some even have saunas.




Recommended to buy the local harbour guides (Sweden, Finland). They show exactly where you can tie your boat to trees in each anchoring bay. Swedish Cruising Association membership gives you access to their hundreds of mooring balls. The 1.5m draft of your Moody should fit in pretty much any anchorage.

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by bergius

membership gives you access to their hundreds of mooring balls. The 1.5m draft of your Moody should fit in pretty much any anchorage.

Actually, we have bilge keels so float on wet grass she has 1.1m draft. I have sailed and dived out of Keel and chartered a dive boat out of Greifswald, but only seen the southern Baltic.

Hate to say this on an 'Merican centric forum, but given the choice of the Caribbean or Baltic, I would choose the Baltic. Brexit has caused some problems for free travel, but we can overcome those I think.

Us drying out up the River Dart with rocks just starting to show and where fin keels fear to tread Oh that's the 300w panel, so doesn't look out of place on a 31ft yacht.

Pete

[Bill O]

Pete,
Personally, we would like to do the Baltic in the summer. It seems like a good place to explore and the shore accommodations are well done/reasonably priced. Also no crime relatively compared to the Caribbean.
The pics on Burgius' site reminded me of similar rocky anchorages in Georgian Bay in Lake Huron (US Great Lakes). Unless growing up in Michigan or Canada very few visit this area.
Unfortunately as we have gotten older, we have become more heat than cold tolerant and therefore are drawn to the tropics for sailing. Seeing coral and bright tropical underwater views are also a plus.
Many different places to see/explore in this world to suit ones desires, just need enough time or money to hit them all.

[Pizzazz]

Originally Posted by bergius

I think the LiFePO4 bank will be happier charged with the proper profile... We don't really consider the engine to be a charging source.

I suggest you revisit this assumption. You are in the Baltics, you don't get enough sun, the boat is slow so hydro is inefficient and wind is unreliable. The best part of your setup is that you have this lithium battery that can take lots of juice efficiently. The only way to give it this juice is the alternator. You have purchased an 80A alternator that you have "derated" to 30A with the DC-DC charger. With the proper setup (either a bigger DC-DC charger or even bigger alternator) You can feed 70-80A @ 14V into the battery which means that one hour of running the engine will give you all the juice you need per day. Your current solar will reduce this time even further. Give it some thought, read some books, you will be happy to investigate this further, IMHO.

[bergius]

Originally Posted by Pizzazz

You have purchased an 80A alternator that you have "derated" to 30A with the DC-DC charger. With the proper setup (either a bigger DC-DC charger or even bigger alternator) You can feed 70-80A @ 14V into the battery which means that one hour of running the engine will give you all the juice you need per day. Your current solar will reduce this time even further. Give it some thought, read some books, you will be happy to investigate this further, IMHO.

Fair point. I’ve read recommendations to not pull more than 50% of the rated amps out of one of these dumb alternators.

I have a 15A DC-DC charger sitting in the spare parts box that I suppose I could install parallel with the current 30A one and see how that works out.

[Na Mara]

I agree about the alternator directly charging the lithium batteries ONLY IF you have an external BMS with some kind of ATC output on your batteries. The problem with charging internally regulated LFP batteries from the alternator is that if the batteries get too hot, too cold, overcharged, grossly undercharged, a bad cell or just generally have a bad day then the BMS will disconnect the battery from the alternator whilst it is charging. This leads to alternator burnout.

There are some modern internal BMS batteries that have an Allow To Charge ATC output. If you have those or an external BMS setup with this feature then you can really get a lot of energy from parasitic engine charging LFP batteries. Assuming you have a v belt engine you could fit a 100A externally regulated alternator, take 90A off it very safely and charge at well over a 1kWh per hour. That package cost maybe 17000:- (I did it last year for this amount). Switch to a serpentine belt and you can go all the way up to maybe 180A though maybe not on your size engine.

However, if you have internally regulated batteries without ATC output, then the only safe way to do engine charging is alternator to Lead acid engine battery with DC DC chargers to LFP batteries. This is very inefficient, and if the alternator is internally regulated the best you will be able to do from a 80A alternator is 30A into the LFP bank. So do your LFP batteries have an ATC output?

In the Baltic it’s worth doing the alternator right as it’s difficult to do more than marina hop out of season without a good fossil fuel power source. Between the diesel heater and extra lighting needed, power demands can double out of season while the solar resource is a fifth of what it is in the summer.

I have also been doing a lot of research on power sources for Baltic sailing and eventually came down to as much pushpit and deck house mounted solar as will fit with each panel having its own MPPT controller. Unless all the panels are identical in output specs and are similarly irradiated most of the time, it’s worth the extra wiring hassle to go with one controller per panel IMHO.

If the 640W solar plus 100A externally regulated alternator we have this fitted prove insufficient despite all our efforts to save on energy usage, then we might also consider extra flinsail panels up the mast or off the guardrails. We are going with a wind vane rather than a hydro generator to meet offshore needs.

[bergius]

Originally Posted by Na Mara

However, if you have internally regulated batteries without ATC output, then the only safe way to do engine charging is alternator to Lead acid engine battery with DC DC chargers to LFP batteries. This is very inefficient, and if the alternator is internally regulated the best you will be able to do from a 80A alternator is 30A into the LFP bank. So do your LFP batteries have an ATC output?

The batteries are Victron LiFePO4 with an external Victron BMS. ATC wire is available, and right now will cut out the DC-DC charger via a relay if needed (as well as solar controllers etc).

The alternator is a dumb internally regulated one that was a drop-in replacement to the original 35A Yanmar alternator. If it was externally regulated, I’d probably get a Wakespeed WS500 regulator as that can talk with the Victron gear, and charge the lithiums directly. But that’s not the case.

Originally Posted by Na Mara

In the Baltic it’s worth doing the alternator right as it’s difficult to do more than marina hop out of season without a good fossil fuel power source. Between the diesel heater and extra lighting needed, power demands can double out of season while the solar resource is a fifth of what it is in the summer.

Oh, I’d be happy with a fifth! I just looked at the stats, and we’ve done a whopping 0.7kWh of solar output this week. At least we have the anchorage for ourselves on overcast winter days like now…

[Na Mara]

Then you really do have a ferrari as a battery system and you are under utilizing it present. I have the same system with a lynx 500 BMS and it communicates with the WS500 regulating a Balmar 100A alternator both through the BUS and/or the feature in line. As I understand it the BUS connection is sufficient if you have a BMS with that facility, though you need a cross over cable for that. Otherwise you can use the feature in wire or a cheaper Balmar regulator with the same.

I haven’t run the system yet, as it is new for this season, but my advice is if you spent all that money on such a high end battery system spending a little extra on an alternator upgrade is really worth it. Then you charge the LFP’s directly off the alternator and reverse the DC to DC charger to charge the engine battery. Much more efficient and you will be less reliant on the oh so rare winter sun in these parts.

Just to add, I also recently fitted a new dumb 80A Hitachi before upgrading my system. I thought about it long and hard and came to the conclusion that despite the sunk cost it was still worth shelling out for a new alternator once the new battery system was fitted.

[bergius]

Originally Posted by Na Mara

Just to add, I also recently fitted a new dumb 80A Hitachi before upgrading my system. I thought about it long and hard and came to the conclusion that despite the sunk cost it was still worth shelling out for a new alternator once the new battery system was fitted.

Thanks to this thread I’m considering to add a second DC-DC charger in parallel to the existing 30A. If we stick to the 50% rule, adding a 9A unit would still not overload the alternator (fingers crossed).

However, I still am much more interested in getting to a workable amount of renewables than relying on the engine. The upgrade to 80A alternator was to ensure that we’re not depleting batteries while motoring (as we were with the 35A one), and it achieved that.

We see running the engine to charge as something to be used only in emergencies.

So:

• Install more solar (targeting 240-360W on the arch)
• Slightly upgrade the alternator output to house bank with a second DC-DC charger
• Start saving for a hydrogenerator

[JebLostInSpace]

Going back to your original charts, I'm surprised that you are prioritizing the hydro over the wind. I agree that solar expansion should be top priority. I won't weigh in on improving your charge rate out of the alternator, since I don't know enough about lithium.

But it seems to me that the wind numbers in your chart indicate that adding a wind generator would put you over the top on energy independence (Except in September). Wind is much cheaper to install than hydro from what I've seen (maybe different in Europe?) And, wind will generate in the anchorage overnight, which should have an outsized effect on actual energy independence. My feeling is that the hydro will only add power when the batteries are near full anyway, because you've just run the engine for a bit to get out of the harbor, plus it's daytime and the solar is working. Plus you're actively sailing, so likely not running the laptops. So even though the total production numbers look good, you might not be able to utilize all of that production when the hydro is spinning.

Disclaimer: I've never had or used either hydro or wind, so all of this is potentially worth less than the proverbial 2 cents.

[bergius]

Originally Posted by JebLostInSpace

But it seems to me that the wind numbers in your chart indicate that adding a wind generator would put you over the top on energy independence (Except in September). Wind is much cheaper to install than hydro from what I've seen (maybe different in Europe?) And, wind will generate in the anchorage overnight, which should have an outsized effect on actual energy independence. My feeling is that the hydro will only add power when the batteries are near full anyway, because you've just run the engine for a bit to get out of the harbor, plus it's daytime and the solar is working. Plus you're actively sailing, so likely not running the laptops. So even though the total production numbers look good, you might not be able to utilize all of that production when the hydro is spinning.

Most of the wind production was also during sailing, as usually the anchorages you find in Sweden or Finland are super-sheltered. The exception (and likely what bumped wind over hydro) was some really windy days where we stayed in a marina. These are usually sheltered from waves, but not always from wind. So the overnight production at anchorage likely wouldn’t work here. Though I’ve been lead to believe wind works great in other places, like the Caribbean.

A pretty common setup for us was to work from anchor, then after work do a 3-4h sail to the next anchorage. This is a time when both wind and hydro would have a decent chance to produce, as the batteries won’t be full if the day was overcast.

Price-wise, wind costs about 60-70% of the hydrogenerator prices to install. This is using Superwind and Watt&Sea prices for guidance. The SailingGen hydrogenerator recommended in this thread is cheaper than most wind gens.

In the end, what’s driving our preference towards hydro is the behaviour it supports: with wind you’re incentivised to anchor in a windy (and hence maybe dangerous or at least uncomfortable) spot, whereas with 5e hydrogenerator, you’re incentivised to go sailing when low on juice. And we like sailing.

That said, we don’t have real-world experience of either, and so are happy to see all the comments and recommendations here!

[Na Mara]

I really, really do get the idea of not relying on engine charging. I am about the most eco warrior person I know. I didn’t go for a bigger alternator on my 90hp engine precisely because I do plan on repowering with electric drive in the near future at which point the boat will be fossil fuel free save heating.

But in the Baltic in the winter we often get slow moving lows or static highs where there is no or very little wind. These can last weeks. Then there are the sheltered anchorages you mentioned. Then there are the freezing temperatures requiring diesel heaters running at full chat consuming over a kWh of electrical energy a day. Add all that together and it is difficult to see how anything other than a fuel cell can meet the loads onboard at this time in this region without fossil fuels

Additionally, if you are motoring in and out of anchorages each day or every other day, that would be enough with a decent alternator to meet your requirements. Another way of thinking about this is if you have a really good alternator, then you only need to run the engine every other day for a couple of hours to meet winter loads, maybe every 3days with solar adding a bit. You might be doing that maneuvering anyway. If you are, then not using that energy to charge your batteries is wasting energy. That’s how I motivated the alternator upgrade despite being a bit of an eco warrior. If I’m using the engine to move, I might as well use as much of the excess energy produced to charge as much as possible whilst doing so.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Na Mara

But in the Baltic in the winter we often get slow moving lows or static highs where there is no or very little wind. These can last weeks. Then there are the sheltered anchorages you mentioned. Then there are the freezing temperatures requiring diesel heaters running at full chat consuming over a kWh of electrical energy a day. Add all that together and it is difficult to see how anything other than a fuel cell can meet the loads onboard at this time in this region without fossil fuels

If cruising colder climates, the drip fed diesel heaters are a better choice for a boat relying on alternative energy. They consume no electricity and can also be used for cooking, saving propane.

[bergius]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

If cruising colder climates, the drip fed diesel heaters are a better choice for a boat relying on alternative energy. They consume no electricity and can also be used for cooking, saving propane.

Yep, that would be a huge power saving outside of the summer months (where we only run the heater occasionally to keep the boat dry during rain). Now we have a 5kWh Chinese diesel heater (our Webasto died in November, and new Chinese heater was cheaper than the Webasto spare parts).

We’ve been looking at bulkhead-mounted Refleks and Dickinson stoves. Not only for the energy savings, but also for the ambience. With a heating loop they might also provide the boat with hot water.

With the chimney and day tank that’s a bit bigger project, though. Maybe next winter.

[sv_pelagia]

Originally Posted by bergius

We’ve been looking at bulkhead-mounted Refleks and Dickinson stoves. Not only for the energy savings, but also for the ambience. With a heating loop they might also provide the boat with hot water.

Our Dickinson Antarctic Diesel heater with dual coil for water heat heats up water way faster and hitter than does our Espar hydronic or engine.