Mitsubishi, Sanyo Working on Hybrid Car Carrier

15 January, 2010 12:15:00

Font size:

Sanyo Electric, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Mitsui OSK Lines are working together to create a hybrid car carrier partly powered by renewable energy.

The companies received funding from Japan's transport ministry as a part of its "Project to Develop Technologies for reduction of CO2 Emissions from New ships" for fiscal 2010 (From April 2009 to March 2010).

The concept ship will have a photovoltaic system (solar panels) and a lithium ion battery system storing energy from the solar panels.

The hybrid car carrier will use of a system combining Sanyo's solar panels (Max. 200kW is planned) with its lithium-ion rechargeable batteries (Max. 3,000kW/h is planned). he battery module will be assembled from 644,000 small batteries of the type commonly used in notebook computers.

The system is hybrid with the diesel generators commonly used for marine vessels, and supplies electric power to the marine vessels.

By using batteries instead of a diesel generator to supply power to the ship while moored, the hybrid car transporter will consume 6.5% less heavy oil on each round trip.

The electric power generated in the solar panels and stored in the rechargeable batteries can be mainly used in harbor.

Since the operation of diesel generators may be stopped while the vessels are in harbor, this system can contribute to the realization of zero CO2 emission. A hybrid car carrier equipped with this system is scheduled for completion in 2012.

[source: Sanyo]

Subscribe to the RSS feed for more information on green cars, green car news & green car technologies.

-----------------------

Follow PureGreenCars on Facebook and Twitter.