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How Amsterdam's Canal Boats Are Going Electric - at a Cost

posted by chromas on Tuesday October 09 2018, @01:44PM   
from the row-row-row-your-boat dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

BBC:

[The canal boat company] has converted six boats so far - it takes about three months to strip out the old diesel engine and install the electric engine and batteries. A typical 23m (75ft) tourist boat needs about 66 batteries, he says, making the conversion cost around 165,000 to 250,000 euros ($189,000 to $287,000; £145,000 to £220,000) per boat.

But the engines are quieter, cleaner and cheaper to run - boat companies should recoup their costs in about 12 years, according to the Paris Process on Mobility and Climate, a body supporting sustainable transport projects.

They can be recharged in about 10 hours and last about two days between charges, says Sigrid Hanekamp, an application engineer from Dutch battery company Lithium Werks, which supplied the batteries for Reederij Kooij's boats.

These batteries are not your typical lead-acid type traditionally used in cars, or even the type of lithium-ion ones becoming standard in electric vehicles, she explains. They're lithium-iron-phosphate, a chemistry Lithium Werks believes is more durable and environmentally friendly.

The boats have been converted to comply with Amsterdam's mandate that all canal boats be converted to electric by 2025, as a measure meant to preserve the environment and reduce noise.

Are measures like these heavy-handed, or necessary to move mankind past dependence on fossil fuels?

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Original Submission

• Re:How long do the batteries last? Re:How long do the batteries last? (Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday October 09 2018, @02:37PM (1 child)

  by c0lo (156) on Tuesday October 09 2018, @02:37PM (#746447) Journal

  I won't comment on the conversion cost, because I don't know if 250k euros is a lot or a little compared to the cost of the boat.

  That's the total cost of conversion, not the price for the batteries. Keeping into account that the Chinese are deep into LiFePO4 [prnewswire.com], I would expect the prices to drop dramatically in the next 3-4 years (if one's country doesn't wage tariff wars against China, that is)

  I am going to go have a read on this battery chemistry. It would be interesting to see how they hold up to repeated charge cycles.

  LiFePO4 - excellent lifespan, no thermal runaway risk [powertechsystems.eu].
  The same link shows the number of cycles based in the Depth of Discharge and rate of discharge (scroll down) - even at a 1C rate of discharge and 100% DoD, you get 2000 cycles - at 2days/cycle that's about there around 12 years.
  But, if you go to only 50% DoD, so you recharge it every night for 5 hours, you get from it about 10000 cycles - at 1D/cycle, that's 27 years.

  See also wikipedia [wikipedia.org]

  100% DOD cycle life (number of cycles to 80% of original capacity) = 2,000–7,000[20]
  10% DOD cycle life (number of cycles to 80% of original capacity) > 10,000[21]
  Sony Fortelion: 74% capacity after 8,000 cycles with 100% DOD[22]

  --
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

  Parent

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• Re:How long do the batteries last? (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday October 10 2018, @01:18AM

  by sjames (2882) on Wednesday October 10 2018, @01:18AM (#746747) Journal

  And given that the full capacity is two days operation and a 10 hour recharge, they can actually run the batteries lonfer, that is, to 50% or so capacity before they actually have to swap them out.

  Parent