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Tang: The Newest Wind Powered Yacht, Charging Batteries Even When Sails Are Down

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International Battery in partnership with Electric Marine Propulsion is planning to build a yacht that uses a lithium ion battery charged by wind energy even when the sails are lowered.

Dubbed Tang, the boat is a 60-foot hybrid-electric catamaran powered by a lithium ion battery, and 22-kilowatt generators that can provide power in the case there is not enough wind. The batteries are also adapted to work with a variety of outlets with different voltages and frequencies, which makes them universally suitable.

The energy produced at the board of the catamaran yacht is used to power a 37-inch flat-screen TV, LED lighting, a microwave, an air-conditioner, and a water maker, two refrigerator-freezers, a dishwasher.

International Battery explains that “the main renewable energy input to the large-format battery pack is electricity regenerated by wind power as the boat’s propellers spin in the wake, under sail. The propellers turn the 18-kilowatt propulsion motors, which automatically become generators and send electricity back to the batteries”.

The boat is currently under testing in St. Francis Bay, South Africa and will be exhibited at the Miami International Boat Show in February 2011. However, the center of attention is not the boat in itself, but the large-format lithium ion batteries for utility-grade energy storage that can be used for boats.

[Source: CNet]

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1 COMMENT

  1. To me it sounds like the next step as far as yachting goes. The energy source of this is what makes it so special. I would like to read about whether or not it was successful. It sounds like everything should have gone smoothly and no doubt revolutionised the way battery charging would work on a catamaran.

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