Design of a PV system for a small boat for use in Bangladesh

Abstract

Bangladesh is a land of rivers, cannel, and lakes where water transportation is an important means of communication. The country use boats as one of the main resources of transportation in its widespread inland waterways. Most of the currently used boats use diesel for fuel. Appropriate use of renewable energy sources particularly solar energy could reduce diesel consumption. In this research, a typical boat energy requirement was calculated to be 13.6kWh/day. A boat could be driven by a DC motor using electrical power which is generated using an onboard PV system. The size of the boat is, length 5.5m, width 2m, and depth 1m with a carrying capacity of 900kg load for 10hours a day. The designed system consists of an 8.53kW, PV, onboard battery storage and a 48V DC motor with a speed controller. The paper also includes a dynamic model and Simulink simulation results.