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Development and evaluation of solar powered catamaran for sustainable

tourism in southeast of the gulf of Thailand

Article in International Journal of Renewable Energy Research · January 2018

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL of RENEWABLE ENERGY RESEARCH
G. Panprayun and S. Pitaksintorn, Vol.8, No.2, June, 2018

Development and Evaluation of Solar Powered

Catamaran for Sustainable Tourism in
Southeast of the Gulf of Thailand

Gunn Panprayun*‡, Suwan Pitaksintorn**

* Faculty of Environment and Resource Studies, Mahidol University, Nakhon Pathom 73170, Thailand
** Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation,
Ministry of National Resources and Environment, Bangkok 10900, Thailand
(gunn.pan@mahidol.edu, suwanpita@hotmail.com)

‡
Corresponding Author; Gunn Panprayun, 999 Mahidol University, Nakhon Pathom, Thailand, 73170,
Tel: +66 2 441 5000, Fax: +66 2 441 9509, gunn.pan@mahidol.edu

Received: 03.09.2017 Accepted:12.12.2017

Abstract- The aim of this research is to develop and evaluate the solar powered catamaran for a response to low carbon
destination and sustainable tourism for Ko Mak Island, Thailand. The development process includes ship design, PV system
design and shipbuilding. Thus, it has designed that are the length with 7.5 Meters and the width with 3.5 meters. Similarly, it has
installed 1.8 kWp photovoltaic generation system and 2 units of 3-hp induction motors. The performance evaluations have been
accomplished in the open water in the designated route. The result showed that the uppermost speed of the catamaran was 9.18
km/h at 4,500 W. At normal cruise speed of 2,000 W, the catamaran speed was 7.77 km/h and maximum travel distance without
charging at depth of discharge equally to 0.6 is 41.96 km. Therefore, the catamaran cruise distance would cover any common
travel route of Ko Mak Island. Furthermore, the 19-km extended travel route has been guided for the boat cruise and monitoring.
The cruise has been performed in calm weather condition, which insolation of the cruise was 27.18 kWh. The PV system could
generate electricity equally to 4.1 kWh or with efficiency of 15.08 percent. However the total consumption was 5.7 kWh. The
average cruise speed was 6.26 km/h and the average motors consumption was 1,889.37 W. Finally it turned out that the boat has
good maneuver response and good throttle response, passengers can walk to several parts for doing activities conveniently.
Keywords solar powered, solar boat, photovoltaic boat, electric boat.

1. Introduction and receiver, and can cause physical, physiological and

behavioral changes in some marine species [2]. Thus, the
Many marine coastal areas around the world are facing the using of EV boat replacing for the internal combustion boat is
growth of tourism pressure, especially cruising along coral another friendly opportunity to the environments for applying
reef areas. Almost of boats related in the seaside tourism are the electric motor work with energy effectiveness in most
fuel and oil based vehicles, which internal combustion engine ways with 85.5-96.2 percentage [3]. Consequently, there are
is main compartment. These boats cause much oil several electric motors in tourist destination areas of
contamination into the sea. Apart from the oil strain and soot naturalistic interest, especially in the lakes which cause to the
affecting to the coral reef in the direct way, it makes the sound, zero exhaust while, the sound and the vibration as the lower
vibration, smoke to annoy the tourists as well as releasing level than in the internal combustion engine [4, 5].
carbon to the atmosphere. These released carbon is one of the
In addition, the environmental problem related to tourism
reasons causes the global warming [1]. Moreover, boat noise
in previous paragraph occurs in Ko Mak, which is an island
is an important source of marine pollution that can mask biotic
located in Trat province, Thailand. Ko Mak is well known as
sounds, disrupting the successful transmission between caller
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL of RENEWABLE ENERGY RESEARCH
G. Panprayun and S. Pitaksintorn, Vol.8, No.2, June, 2018

its clear water, white sand beach, beautiful coral reef, and exceeding to 10 persons 2) environmental friendly atmosphere
plentiful of marine life, even rare species such as dugongs are 3) safety for cruise, especially for children fall off 4) speed
encountered by villagers. On the other hand, there is a barrier was insignificant for western travelers; entrepreneur
to apply EV boat to the area since electricity on the island is expectations 1) charter boat fits for 6-10 persons 2) area for
limited by diesel engine generation. So, solar powered activities includes sun bathing, fishing, diving deck 3) Latest
generation boat is proposed. Likewise, the performance of a ship design with modern style 4) Recommended speed was
solar powered boat in marine water for tourism is a question. about 10 km/h 5) a single trip should finished in 30-45 minutes
So, this paper wants to represent solar powered boat 6) safety for cruise and passengers includes good drainage,
development for Ko Mak tourism and evaluation of its non-slip surface, curved decoration 7) budget for a recent boat
performance in the open water. should be less than 400,000 Baht or 12 thousands USD (33.33
Baht per 1 USD) 8) easy to maintain for local mechanics.
2. Study Area
According to the expectation from the tourists and the
entrepreneur opinions as the above information, this project
Ko Mak island was selected as the study area. Moreover,
has made a conclusion that the ship type should be a catamaran
is the large island located between the Ko Chang Island and because it has the specialty with two bilges to be assembled in
the Ko Kood Island with the distances from the coast the parallel way. Then, in overall the catamaran has much
approximately 38 km. It has the accommodations for the
wideness with good stabilization not the same as the ship with
tourists as one of all large-scale islands in Trat province only one bilge. Thus, it is fitted in the tourists who satisfied
following by Ko Chang Island and Ko Kood Island. Besides, with the safe ship. Similarly, the installing of heavy and large
its shape looks like the four point stars, and most area is the
solar cell on the roof of catamaran and the slender bilge have
plain with coconut garden. Fortunately, the natural condition the good advantages with the non-resistance of water and the
is still quite abundant with beautiful beach line, peaceful strong effectiveness on using of drive power. In addition, it
atmosphere and simple and friendly lifestyle of people in the has designed for the driving unit by placing the motors at the
islands including of not far away of the bend of the bay and center of the ship. Besides, the power will be sent through the
the streets on the island around 27 km. As the result, the
driveshaft and the propellers at the tail of the catamaran in the
tourists could travel conveniently. Additionally, the tourist similar form of the long tail boat. However, it has the good
season begins from October to May. The study route is from advantage with the easy maintenance managed by the local
Ko Mak to Ko Kradat, the most popular tourism route. The
mechanics. On the other hand, it has the disadvantages with
map of Ko Mak is shown as the figure 1. the lower power transmission basing on the increased angle of
driveshaft. The ship design point out the main compartments
and their bilges in cross section are shown in the figure 2.

Fig. 1. Ko Mak map

3. Ship Development

3.1 Ship design

The modern concepts in ship design which based on

efficiency and economic [6] has been selected as a major
principle for the ship development process. The first step of
the ship design spiral is to clarify mission requirements, which
have been collected from the previous study [7]. Therefore the
previous study based on tourists and entrepreneur
expectations, which could be concluded as following: tourist Fig. 2. Ship design and cross section
expectations 1) privacy cruise for 4-7 persons without

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G. Panprayun and S. Pitaksintorn, Vol.8, No.2, June, 2018

The ship design has been simulated at speed of -3 m/s.

The result shows no severed drag as the show in the figure 3.
While the thrust required for cruising speed of 10 km/h is 0.76
kN which equal to 2.15 kW. However, the project considered
to double motor power to 4.3 kW due to driveshaft angle loses
compensation. So, double 3-hp motors which equal to 4,476
W have been selected.
Fig. 4. Single line diagram of photovoltaic generation system

3.3 Shipbuilding

In this case, has been built at Navalian Shipyard, Pattaya,

Thailand. The ship hull is made of fiberglass, while the
support structures are made of stainless steel. The control unit
includes ship’s wheel, compass, electrical control switches,
and is installed in the motors room as shown in the figure 5
and figure 6. The ship has been named Sang Suwan.

Fig. 3. Ship simulation with current speeds of -3 m/s

3.2 Photovoltaic system

Since 4.3 kW is load demand for desired cruising speed

and cruising length is 2 hours, so the total energy require for a
single trip is 8.6 kWh. The battery capacity is equal to energy
demand divide by battery voltage, depth of discharge, and
battery charging efficiency, which is 48 V, 0.6, and 0.9 in the Fig. 5. Ship overview
order. So, the required capacity of the ship is 331.79 Ah. In
this case, 125 Ah, 12 V deep cycle batteries is selected and
apply twelve batteries by connect to four serial circuits and
three series of parallel circuits. The installed capacity is up to
375 Ah. Thus, they have been installed at the bilge with the
waterproof cover on the battery storage including of the vents
to protect from the contamination of gas inside the bilge.
For PV design, the area irradiation from NASA Surface
Meteorology and Solar Energy data set at the latitude position
of 11.820 N and the longitude position of 102.484 E has been
considered. It was found that since October to May it is in the
high season of traveling with having a calm wave as the
averages of solar irradiance similarly to 5.519 kWh/m2.d, it
should specify for the efficiency of polycrystalline panel with
equally to 0.163. While, typical polycrystalline module
efficiency ranged from 15.3 to 16.51 [8], battery efficiency of Fig. 6. Ship control unit
0.9, and invertor efficiency of 0.95. Thus, it has represented
that the effectiveness of system efficiency is likewise with Taking into thoughtfulness the budget of the ship, it has
0.1296. So, PV installing required area is 11.8 m2 or equal to the higher costs than the expectation of the entrepreneurs due
6 panels of the 72-cell type panel. Then, it has the advantage to the lacking of the fiberglass molding of the ship hull. So, it
with installing of solar cell replacing of the roof that is to be must have the higher level of the expenditures than usual.
consisted of the great vents to take the heat from the panels to Then, in the future it can reduce times and the expenditures in
the environment with the sea breeze. It should be noted that this part for 10-20 percent from using a molding. The
the maximum available area for PV panel is 18 square meters, expenditure is shown as the table 1. It should be noted that a
but trade off 6 square meters for sun deck. The PV generation BLDC motor is more capable for electric vehicle comparing
system is shown as the figure 4. to an AC induction motor due to compactness, cooling, and
energy consumption. Typically, the BLDC motor has a few

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G. Panprayun and S. Pitaksintorn, Vol.8, No.2, June, 2018

percentage point of efficiency higher than the AC induction for 1,000 meters in the return route from Sapanphla
motor [9, 10]. However, in this study, the AC induction drive Chalermphon Pier to Laemngob Pier. The route is shown in
has been selected considering with low cost, simplicity, and the figure 8.
familiarity to users.
Table 1. Ship building expenditure
Equipment Unit Cost THB
(USD)
1. Hull 7.5 × 3.5 230,000
Meters (6,900)
2. Electric Motor with 3-HP Motor 60,000
Controller 2 units (1,800)
3. Transmission unit 1 unit 20,000
(600)
4. Photovoltaic Panels 300 Wp 60,000
6 panels (1,800)
5. Battery 12V 125 Ah 72,000 Fig. 8. Cruise testing area
12 units (2,160)
Therefore, according to the weather during the test from
6. Invertor 5 Kilowatts 50,000 Thai Marine Meteorological Center, it was found that there is
(1,500) the North East wind speed with 13-15 knots and high wave
7. Other Equipment 20,000 with 0.3 - 0.6 meters conforming to the real test condition with
(600) three passengers and the average weight of 80 kg. Besides,
according to the test result, it was found that the Catamaran
Total 512,000 Solar cell has the most speed at 9.18 km/h with 4,500 W.
(15,360) However, it was found that the effectiveness to use the energy
is in reducing way with the increasing with the speed as the
result is shown in the figure 9 as the performance curves of the
boat.
4. Ship Evaluation

4.1 Open water performance test

Throughout during the cruise, the boat has been tested to

find the relationship between power and speed. Thus, set the
specified motor power at 500, 1,000, 1,500, 2,000, 2,500,
3,000, 3,500, 4,000, and 4,500 W then speeds were measured
using a GPS instrument and retrieved data from the charge
controller/inverter unit. The data set is shown in the figure 7.

Fig. 9. Performance curves

Then, if it has considered about the capacity of the
designed battery, it will see that the battery can discharge the
power up to 10.8 kWh at depth of discharge equally to 0.6.
Similarly, if it has setup for the motor power with 2,000 W, it
will assist to use the solar powered catamaran with 5.4 hours
as well as traveling with the distances of 41.96 km. Thus, it
can make the table summary for selecting the suitable speed
with the tourism routes as the designing with these ways:

Fig. 7. Charge controller and inverter unit

In addition, the cruise testing was performed in Laemngob
Cape, which located in the latitude positions of 12.177840 N
and 102.385357 E. The ship cruised for each specified power

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G. Panprayun and S. Pitaksintorn, Vol.8, No.2, June, 2018

Table 2. Ship performance for tourism route planning knots and the high wave less than 0.3 Meters conforming to
the real test condition with three passengers and the average
Power Averages of Cruise Max. weight of 80 kg. Similarly, it can charge with full battery that
(W) Speed Length Distance has the voltages of 51 V from sailing in the designated route.
Additionally, the first period of time to use the Catamaran
(km/h) (hour) (km) Solar Cell is at Ao Nid Pier to the southern Cape of Ko Kradat
500 2.81 21.60 60.70 island between 0.10 - 0.39 p.m. while the second period of
time to travel around Ko Kradat and the third period of time
1,000 4.52 10.80 48.82 to go out from Ko Kradat back to Ao Nid Pier begin from 0.40
1,500 6.53 7.20 47.02 - 1.19 p.m. and 1.20 - 3.10 p.m., respectively. On the same
way, during the trip it was found that the catamaran has the
2,000 7.77 5.40 41.96 good balancing with the subtle design to allow for the
2,500 8.03 4.32 34.69 passengers to walk around and doing activities conveniently.
What’s more, in the common case it has shown of no problem
3,000 8.78 3.60 31.61 about the winds and the waves except for the cruising against
3,500 9.04 3.09 27.89 the strong wind will greatly reduce the speed. Besides, the
catamaran has a good performance for cruising against or
4,000 9.02 2.70 24.35 along the wave and no severe drag as simulation and as the
figure 11. However, the weakness of the catamaran boat is
4,500 9.18 2.40 22.03
when the wave came against besides hulls, the boat rolls twice
due to double bilge design.

4.2 Cruise performance

In this case, Ko Kradat is selected as a destination since

it is the most popular destination for traveling from Ko Mak.
The solar powered catamaran has sailed from Ao Nid Bay to
Ko Kradat, around Ko Kradat, and going back to Ao Nid Pier
with whole distances of 19.188 km by classifying into 3 parts:
1) from Ao Nid Bay Pier to the South Cape of Ko Kradat
(green line) with total distances of 4.897 km 2) the route
around Ko Kradat (yellow line) with total distances of 9.743
km. Moreover, 3) the distances for the Southern of the Cape
in Ko Kradat back to Ao Nid Bay Pier (red dashed line) with
a total of 4.548 km. The cruising is shown in the figure 10.
During the time of cruise, solar insolation, solar output, motor
input, global position, and speed has been recorded. By the Fig. 11. Low water drag at boat tail
way, the part around Ko Kradat is an extended distance. The
ordinary route for tourism is from Ko Mak to Ko Kradat pier, Then, the average insolation during the test is equally to
which located in the south Cape of the island. 750.75 W/m2. Thus, if it has calculated with the installed area
of 12 square meters, it will gain the insolation values in the
same way with 27.18 kWh as the representation of the figure
12 with other parameters.

Fig. 10. Cruising route

Fig. 12. Cruising summary
Therefore, according to the weather condition during the
test of Marine Meteorological Center in Thailand it was found According to the analyzing of data, it was found that the
that there is the North East wind speed approximately for 7-9 solar energy input to the PV panels is likewise to 27.18 kWh.

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Then, the system can transform the solar energy to battery the Solar cell system can produce the power energy and charge
with equally to 4.1 kWh or 15.08 percent. Similarly, along the to battery with 4.1 kWh or with the effectiveness with equally
testing cruise the energy has been consumed by motors with to 15.08% and the average speed with 6.26 km/h.
equally to 5.7 kWh with the motor power in mean of 1,889.37
W, and with average speed for 6.26 km/h. However, apart References
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