Kinetic energy recovery system for sailing yachts

SEAKERS (SEA Kinetic Energy Recovery System) is a research project, funded within the 7th EU Framework Programme and officially started on January 1st, 2011, whose goal is to develop an innovative device consisting in a kinetic energy recovery system for sailing yachts based on the conversion of boat oscillations (heave, pitch and roll) caused by the sea into electric energy by means of a linear generator. Therefore, SEAKERS addresses a well known unsatisfied requirement of yacht owners, since energy is a resource of primary importance in a boat, especially in a sailing one: it is well known that during a one day cruise, electricity consumption has to be carefully managed (for instance the refrigerator is switched off), so as not to be short of energy at night. It often happens that, after one day of sail cruise, it is necessary to recharge the batteries through the onboard generator, which means keeping it on for hours, producing very annoying noise, smoke and pollution. The device that is going to be developed aims at recovering as much kinetic energy as possible from the natural movements of a sailing yacht on the sea, therefore taking the view of a boat as a moving wave energy converter with energy harvesting capacity. The boat’s motions can be vertical oscillations due to the buoyancy in the presence of sea waves, both when the boat is still or sailing, and rolling and pitching motions originated both by sailing in wavy waters and by the normal boat dynamics due to the sails’ propulsion. Linear generators will convert kinetic energy into electrical energy to be used as “green” electricity for any possible application on board. Preliminary calculations show that a properly configured system could be able to recover 100-400 W under most sea conditions, which can be an extremely attractive result since an electric energy availability of 1-2 kWh on a sailing yacht is of significant interest.