First partially-solar-powered cargo ship launches in Japan

We'd heard that Nippon Oil and Nippon Yusen were working on a million-dollar solar upgrade for a car freighter called the Auriga Leader back in August, and it looks like things have gone as planned -- the cargo ship launched today from Kobe, Japan. The $1.68m project involved the installation of 328 solar panels, which produce 40 kilowatts of power -- a measly 0.3 percent of the engine power required to move the 656-foot, 60,000-ton ship when fully loaded with 6,400 cars, but enough for seven percent of the juice required for lighting and other systems. That's a slow start, but we'll take what we can get, we suppose -- now let's bolt on some of those new record-high efficiency panels and see what happens.

[Thanks, Yossi]

[dzhiurgis @ Dec 24th 2008 6:20AM]

How big sails should be for such a ship?

[dzhiurgis @ Dec 24th 2008 9:36AM]

Whut whut?

[Precurse @ Dec 24th 2008 1:26PM]

... In the butt?

[Jason @ Dec 24th 2008 5:25PM]

I think what you meant to ask is how much less would it cost to just use a sail.

[fred @ Dec 24th 2008 6:46AM]

"suppose -- now let's bolt on some of those new record-high efficiency panels and see what happens."

.03 becomes .06 even if the cells are doubled in efficiency:P
wee!

[Pedro @ Dec 24th 2008 7:13AM]

I don't foresee many ships taking up this design; don't most container ships stack containers on the decks?

[ipubs bastard child @ Dec 24th 2008 7:37AM]

I'd imagine they don't stack cars up like crates or in crates tho? so useful in this sense.
40Kw doesnt sound like a lot of power to me in any sense of the word. It's probably cost more in R&D and design that they'll save in power use.

[Felix @ Dec 25th 2008 3:06AM]

Yeah container ships do stack containers on the deck, but that's not a container ship that's a RORO (Roll in Roll out), it's just used to carry cars, a design for container cargo ships would be totally different and they are two different types of ships

[dan @ Dec 24th 2008 7:28AM]

It almost definitely took more energy to manufacture those solar panels than they will produce in the ship's entire useful lifetime.

[andrewviolet @ Dec 24th 2008 10:18AM]

sorry why is this guy low ranked - its true. It is a sad fact but it is true. .03% - come on whats the point its certainly no greener because of all the energy used to create and manufacture those panels. If you want green power look to hydroelectric power. It's reliable and incredibly powerful whilst helping farmers although it does require flooding although still less space than the wind farms and solar fields to produce similar amounts of power. Switzerland for example is 100% hydroelectric and even sell electricity to other countries. Public transport -mostly electric- is superb and therefore comes close to solving traffic problems at the same time.

[faelen @ Dec 24th 2008 7:40AM]

It's supposed to be 0.3% according to the original article.

[Ross Nicholson @ Dec 24th 2008 7:46AM]

Individual containers might utilize solar to cool their interiors to augment normal refrigeration on the deck of a ship or to help power the cab when pulled by a truck. The tops of truck trailers are always outside and putting a thin film solar panel on one (hey! standard size!) would be easy and they could stay with the cab, too.

[Ethan @ Dec 24th 2008 8:07AM]

I wonder how long it'll take them to make that money back. I have no doubt that they will though.

[tom @ Dec 24th 2008 8:38AM]

Shhh....I think the Somalia pirates surf on engadget too !!! =P

[Wwhat @ Dec 24th 2008 8:14AM]

Whatever happened to those tankers/cargo ships with 'electronic' (they were controlled by computers) sails? As I recall they did actually made some of those ships long ago, seems to me to be a more economic and sensible way to do things, and proven technology you could say.

[fred @ Dec 24th 2008 8:32AM]

sails take space/weight from cargo..esp if stacked containers.

[Celedhring @ Dec 24th 2008 8:39AM]

You mean the kite ships? There was at least one testing the tech one year ago:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7205217.stm

[Wwhat @ Dec 26th 2008 7:14AM]

Weight is less of an issue with ships I think, and yeah you lose some minimal cargo capacity but if you knock off 20% fuel cost I imagine it would be worth it, and better value than for half a million solar panels that achieve little and also lose capacity over time on top of everything.

Thanks for linking Celedhring but I was thinking of the kind with a kind of plastic looking 'sails' on the deck, although the kite thing is interesting too, kites, who knew eh.

[TheSailor @ Dec 24th 2008 8:26AM]

Well... 40 kW might sound insignificant - and it really is. With an average of 10 hours of useable sunshine (which is quite a high average), that is less than 100 kg of fuel per day, or 36 tonnes per year! I've sailed on the worlds largest container ship as a marine engineer and we use 36 tonnes ever 2 hours... And the real energy saving is probably more like 40 kg pr day if you have to be realistic! That is less than an hours worth of consumption saved... Pr year!

[SimbaDogg @ Dec 24th 2008 7:55PM]

haha with all those numbers, and with a name like "thesailor" i will shuttup and take whatever you say as gospel.

[Dorf @ Dec 24th 2008 8:57AM]

Where do they put the poached whales?

[BdgBill @ Dec 24th 2008 9:16AM]

With the exception of the big industrial power plants in the desert, solar is not even close to being ready for prime time.

BP made a big splash a few years ago by covering the canopys of their newest gas stations with solar panels. I was involved in the project. The power output was so small and unreliable that they did not know what to do with the trickle of power they produced. In most stores it ended uo being hooked up to the soda fountain to run a few solenoid valves and the 20 watt flourescent light behind the sign. In many stores the panels were actually hooked up to nothing.

The Birkenstock Brigade seems to think we could all be driving around in solar cars tomorrow if only we were not all so selfish and in the pocket of Big Oil. This is a fantasy.

Oh, and wind is only slightly better

[rawksteadi @ Dec 24th 2008 9:32AM]

Has anyone see this outside of Shanghai? looks like it's a solar powered aircraft carrier.
http://flickr.com/photos/rawksteadi/3099013053/in/set-72157611391328635/

[milton359 @ Dec 24th 2008 9:56AM]

This probably made much more sense when oil (and/or) fuel was 3x what it was now. It's still a nice green start.

[MBS @ Dec 24th 2008 10:24AM]

A nice green start?
How much harm was done to the environment in manufacturing these panels and will be done when they need to be disposed of?

[Mr. Pips @ Dec 24th 2008 12:26PM]

It's the thought that counts, not the results. So what if it is a massive failure? Our society no longer judges actions by results, only intentions.


Unless you're George Bush.

[Dave @ Dec 24th 2008 4:12PM]

"It's still a nice, green start"

How, in any fashion, is this a "nice start"? The amount of time and energy put into these panels, when compared to the results, is almost equivalent to saying "I'm going to build my own house! I've already gathered sticks and twigs for the frame!"

It's not a "nice start", it's most likely insulting to the whole "Green" movement. All they've done is made the average Dick and Jane who would read this article think to themselves, "Wow, that's all that they could do? I guess Solar isn't a very good alternative energy", and make people generally lose faith in solar as a whole.

Solar has not matured and most likely won't for another decade or so. People who get solar panels these days are doing it for one of two reasons: Either because they have the money and are willing to put down a massive initial investment to power their own property, even though the price won't be justified for about 30+ years when they finally "break even" on money that they aren't paying the power company, or two, because they're an eco-nut who honestly believes this "every little bit helps" crap. Or possibly a combination of both, like BP putting solar panels everywhere, solely for the image factor.

Solar Panels that are currently on the market are what, 30% efficient? 40% if you feel like paying double? Am I the only one who thinks we're jumping on this bandwagon a bit early on a technology that, while (maybe) promising, still hasn't proven itself? I'm not asking for 99% efficient panels, and I think if we want to get off oil it's going to have to be a multitude of technologies that do it, not just one.

I feel sorry for the presenter who has to tell his shareholders this news, though. At the very least, I'd be pissed that they spent $1,680,000 to get, what was it that was posted earlier? 1 hours worth of energy saved per year? God.

[milton359 @ Dec 24th 2008 4:40PM]

You're missing the point. The weight savings and added fuel savings creates a return. Newly built solar panels have a 40+ yr lifespan so this is something that can keep being used. Gas on the other hand burns up and is gone. Trust me they are burning tons of it just moving that barge of ship and providing electricity with their generators. Not to mention the storage space needed to hold the fuel.

Trust me I'm sure there was a return on investment planned in there when it was designed and built. Maybe the numbers don't pan out anymore, but I'm sure they did at the time.

[Joe @ Dec 24th 2008 5:19PM]

Solar panels start losing measurable efficiency after 15 years. They are worn out by 25. In actual practice, it's less than that. The mechanical wear and tear limits the life even more. At sea, the life will be even more limited. This was done for purely political, not financial, reasons.

(One problem with solar cells is that the amount of power in a square meter is actually small. In the laboratory, cells have gotten fairly efficient, but commercially available cells have been stuck in the low percentages for decades.)

[CrackedButter @ Dec 24th 2008 10:18AM]

For the geeks out there, Auriga was the name of the military ship from Alien Resurrection.

[Doug H @ Dec 24th 2008 10:45AM]

a measly .03 percent - relevancy of this to energy production, to me and amount of space that should have been allocated to this article.

[Justin B @ Dec 24th 2008 12:21PM]

Does anyone else see a huge wiimote?

[Ignatius @ Dec 24th 2008 1:51PM]

Well, now I do.

[SiXiam @ Dec 24th 2008 5:02PM]

Yeah it does look like the side view or bottom of the Wii Mote...

That's a good catch there!

[BigD145 @ Dec 24th 2008 2:10PM]

If only they could get rid of the heavy fuel oil that just happens to be more toxic than crude, then we'd be set.

[jd @ Dec 24th 2008 2:41PM]

good start,i can imagine in the future they will make the ship wider to catch more sun light. or even a apair of wings to catch more sun light.

[Arkenklo @ Dec 24th 2008 3:44PM]

Yeah... Or not.

[Joe @ Dec 24th 2008 5:20PM]

Even at 100% efficiency, there isn't enough solar power in ten times the surface area of any ship to power it with solar cells.

[bebop @ Dec 24th 2008 8:15PM]

"40 kilowatts of power -- a measly 0.3 percent of the engine power"

engine power = 13 megawatts = enough power to supply 13,000 homes

ugh. bring back the tea clippers!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper

[Ken Le @ Jan 27th 2009 1:38PM]

I suspect and hope the PV will be used to power the electric propulsion in and out of the harbour (with the assistance of tugs) to reduce the toxic fumes coming from burning either the Bunker C or the Diesel fuels.