Powered By the Sun

Wilda is a sailing vessel above all else and as such she will not need diesel engines. Instead she will be powered by the sun.

Electric Propulsion

She will have two electric drives taking care of her motorized propulsion.

Large Solar Panel Arrays

15 solar panels on her roof will provide power for Wilda, outputting around 1600 W in perfect conditions. These will be complimented with anoter 1000 W or so above the davits. SUNBEAMsystems make some of the best panels on the market. I will be using their panels as far as possible.

Click the picture below to have a look at their products. Good stuff!

Off Grid Power Storage

Power provided by the panels will be stored in 6 batteries from discarded Tesla cars providing a total of 30 kW of storage. The batteries will be able to handle any and all daily needs for power as well as propell Wilda for short periods in and out of anchorages and marinas. If necessary, the batteries will also provide some help during windless days, though I have no idea what sort of range might be achieved. Well.. I have a guess… But nowhere close to any reliable data before launching and going for a test drive.

If I would have bought batteries today, I would probably have gone with a different, more forgiving, battery chemistry. There are some safety concerns with these batteies… With any batteries, though some more than others.

simplified power diagram

Wilda will have a power system that is a more complicated version of the below simplified diagram.

As power storage, the Tesla modules will be the main component of the system. The cells will primarily be charged by the large solar panel array through a set of solar boost charge controllers. As auxiliary method for charging, a small gasoline powered generator will be used, connected through a Victron inverter charger. The inverter charger will be able to charge the batteries when connected to the generator or when connected to shore power and will also supply 230V AC power from the battery pack for any equipment onboard that needs it, such as the induction cook top or any corded power tools.

Talking about consumers, the main 48V consumer will be the two drive units, two 10kW brushless motors. As a bonus, the motors can be used for regenerative charging while under sail.

DC loads onboard will, at this point, only be 12V loads. The larger of these, such as the anchor winch, the fridge, and the auto pilot will be powered by two large capacity DC/DC converters. Remaining loads will be handled by much smaller DC/DC converters for equipment such as navigation equipment and lighting, matching the converters to the expected loads. The plan is to have multiple redundant systems for powering all navigation and safety equipment and to also have a spare power supply in the form of power tool batteries, to power communication and navigation in case of a total battery failure.

All power can be monitored with the help of the victron Color Control panel, also allowing remote access to all information via any PED connected to the onboard system network. The system will also directly monitor the battery management system to be able to shut off charging or loads for over or under voltage protection.