When it comes to solar power, boats seem uniquely suited to the task: after all, they sit on top of a highly reflective body of water with unobstructed view of the sun.
At least that’s the thinking behind the new PlanetSolar watercraft, a 100-foot-long, 50-foot-wide catamaran that was unveiled last week at HDW Shipyard in Germany.
Conceived by skipper Raphaël Domjan, the multi-hull, 50-person white catamaran is crowned with about 5,300 square feet of solar panels made up with some 38,000 SunPower cells. Each of the cells offers an efficiency of at least 22 percent, making them the highest-efficiency solar cells commercially available.
What if it’s an overcast day? Batteries below deck store enough energy for several days without direct sunlight.
The $24 million boat is expected to begin testing in late March and will set sail on its maiden voyage in 2011. At a top speed of 15 knots — that’s 17 miles per hour for landlubbers — it’s expected to be the fastest solar boat to cross the Atlantic Ocean and the first to cross the Pacific, with planned stops in New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, Singapore and Abu Dhabi.
