Hull Capacitance: The Unconventional Green Fuelling Technology Harnessing Plug Power Navigate Concept for Inland Waterways Navigation

Abstract

With the huge increase in global liquid fuels usage, an alarming situation has risen to develop and adopt alternative green technology to mitigate global warming attributable to high pollutant emission. Transportation sector, being one of the major fuel and energy consumers, effective substitution is required for Inland waterways over land and rail transport. This paper focuses on the development of a ‘Plug Power Navigate’ concept to bring out an infrastructure to utilize the offshore wind and solar platform generated electricity for Inland Vessels navigation. Solar energy, available wind etc. can massively save fuel and keep environment pollution free. Technology like Wind and Solar resource assessment, wind energy installations, have been studied in this paper based on the climatic and technological sophistications. One of the major technological sophistications include, storage of this energy on board as Hull Capacitance. To harness the concept of Plug Power Navigate with the above mentioned technological sophistications, the vessel has been modified to accomodate the power storage facility on the principles of Hull Capacitance. It is based on the acquisition of power by means of an external source and its storage within the hull frame work, which can then be utilized later, for the purpose of navigation. The structural framework is modified in compliance with the safety norms. Care has been taken to make minimal modifications to the hull structure from both safety and operation point of view, keeping the operation perspective unhindered. The inception of greener technologies in the shipping strata can be boosted by the tapping of renewable sources of energy along with the inclusion of power storage sophistications, and this debut in the maritime sphere can act as Pole Star for future research and exploration of various technologies in this direction bringing out an innovative set up for the Inland Water Transport worldwide.