Russian solar powered catamaran will sail from Saint-Petersburg to Astrakhan (photo, video)
A catamaran powered by electric engine and solar batteries, a unique product of Russian engineers, will leave Saint-Petersburg on 19 May 2018. The expedition along the rivers will end in Astrakhan on 1 September, says IAA PortNews correspondent.
According to Yevgeny Kazanov, Director of ANO National Center for Engineering Contests and Competitions, President of the Organization Committee for the international competition Solar Regatta, the catamaran will take part in the Ecowave expedition in the framework of the Engineering Contests and Competitions project. The project is foreseen by the roadmap of MariNet, working group of National Technological Initiative (NTI).
During a three-month period, the ship will cover more than 5,000 km across 20 regions of Russia. 14 cities will host Ecowave, a sci-tech festival.
Yevgeny Kazanov says the ship was built by Marinelab involved in construction of boats and catamarans in Baltiyets, a yacht club in Saint-Petersburg.
“In August 2017, the yard of the yacht club Baltiyets started building a unique environmentally friendly catamaran. Today, the ship is ready to participate in the Ecowave expedition. The project was developed by a consortium of postgraduates and students of the Kaliningrad University, Moscow University and Saint-Petersburg Polytechnic University.
Total cost of the ship is RUB 13 million including RUB 8 million invested by the state and RUB 5 million of private investments.
About 90% of the ship components are of Russian origin. In particular, the solar battery was manufactured by Hevel (Novocheboksarsk), the accumulators – by Liotech (Novosibirsk). The ship is equipped with two engines of 4 MW each. The catamaran is able to move for eight hours at full speed, 13 km/h, without using solar batteries.
Yevgeny Kazanov emphasized that the design would be refined basing on the expedition results.
“In the future, we are going to build such ships of higher capacity, 20-30 persons”, he said.
Video contributed by TV Channel Saint-Petersburg
