A cutting-edge new cargo ship from the company Eco Marine Power could be the first out of the box to integrate a rigid sail system with solar power and energy storage. Going by the concept design, the renewable energy hardware seems to be taking up some valuable deck space, but this first vessel will be a floating R&D platform intended to arrive at the optimal balance between renewables and cargo for various ship models.
If all goes well, the company foresees that various iterations of the wind+solar+storage combo could be used in the cruise ship and ore carrier sectors, in addition to cargo ships.
A move in the direction of rigid sails for cargo ships crossed the CleanTechnica radar back in 2012, when the Irish company B9 Shipping came up with an idea for a wind-powered cargo ship modeled on rotating sail technology used in the then-largest luxury yacht in the world, the Maltese Falcon, which hit the water in 2006 using DynaRig sails.
DynaRig is rooted in a 1960’s concept for placing sails on a rotating mast. The heavy materials in use at the time prevented the concept from breaking into commercial application, but the introduction of lightweight carbon fiber and other new materials enabled DynaRig sails to slide into the superyacht market.
DynaRig also got a mention in CleanTechnica back in 2013, when the high-end yacht company Oceanco came up with an idea for deploying a ship equipped with both solar panels and DynaRig technology.
That yacht (dubbed Solar) made a huge splash when first announced in 2012. It was under wraps as a super secret project until it launched into a testing phase earlier this year.
Despite Oceanco nailing down the Solar name, it looks like Eco Marine Power could still have bragging rights to the first integrated wind + solar ship. It’s pretty hard to spot where Solar is hiding its solar panels, and there doesn’t seem to be much room for them on deck considering all the superyacht extras crowding for a spot in the sun:
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