Imagine anchoring off a tropical pristine bay where nothing but the whisper of the sea surrounds you. Upon arrival, the main engines shut keeping the boat silent. With one generator loaded to its optimal, the exhaust gasses emissions are marginal.
Should more power be needed, an automatic peak-shaving system keeps up with the demand. When the chefs finish the meal preparation, the crew shuts down all gen-sets leaving the entire boat and the bay in total silence.

No more vibrations, no accidental clouds of smoke during a mealtime on deck…
This relaxing and calm atmosphere will not only be appreciated by your guests enjoying their time, but also by your crew while at rest.

Our customized solution:

     Your guest will enjoy the benefits of this new technology, making their time onboard memorable as they experience the benefits of:

  • Silent ambient onboard that helps relaxing
  • Smoke and vibration free anchoring, increasing the overall comfort sensation
  • Reliable grid and 24/7 connection to the Internet
  • Environmentally friendly vessel

      As a yacht owner, the initial refit translates into:

  • A lower fuel consumption – no need to have a stand-by generator running
  • Lower generator maintenance costs – shortening working hours
  • Lower maintenance cost on exhaust system – minimum amount of CO residues
  • Overtime savings caused by low harmonic distortions, or equipment malfunctions
  • Eliminate operational cost caused by blackouts
  • Less number of generators required, while keeping up with power demand

S/Y WINDROSE OF AMSTERDAM

Worldwide cruising 46m custom-build sailing yacht

An extraordinary vessel

Sailing yacht Windrose of Amsterdam, designed by Dijkstra and built by Holland Jachtbouw holds the Atlantic crossing record from year 2002 and 2005, reaching a speed of 27kt under sails. This custom built worldwide cruising schooner has an extraordinary itinerary including Antarctic, American Patagonia and Pacific Islands.

With such a demanding itinerary and continuous guest visits, it requires to have 24/7 reliable onboard systems. The vessels operations require a worry-free solution to ensure that both, guests and crew, focus on researching the world’s marine resources, while keeping the visited environments intact. Daily operations, communication and safety systems are all based on the onboard power grid.

Instead of traditional grid synchronization method, it has more efficient and flexible solution using a customized synchronization system via High Voltage DC-link bus. A flexible approach based on a clear understanding of technology’s capabilities, strengths and weaknesses.

Focusing on the worldwide itinerary, remote locations of the vessel, a powerful energy storage system was implemented in order to meet all the guest’s requirement while keeping the vessel silent.

The monitoring and control system have been redesigned and rewritten to implement light PMS in-house developed GATO system.

Onboard space is a luxury

As in most sailing vessels’ engine rooms – space is a luxury. Due to space constrains, our team chose a liquid heat exchange system designed to meet demand power, and impeccable cooling performance, while obtaining a 20dBA quieter operations and 50% reduction on the equipment´s size.

Throughout the solution´s design process our engineers put special emphasis on simulating the system’s daily operations, including abrupt changes of load, inductive load and off-load scenarios. These were all simulated in high-level schematics, minimizing any unforeseen behaviors and ensuring a successful implementation of the designed solution.

PMS

The GATO system is a lightweight in-house developed Power Management System. It allows automatic generator operations, load sharing, and higher power loads automatic cut-off in case of overload improving the quality of your daily vessel´s operations.

In this solution the battery powered peak-shaving system allows usage of a single generator running in its nominal 75-90% load throughout the mornings. Once galley and guest movement start, the 2nd generator automatically joins the grid to keep up with the demand and fully load up the battery bank, ensuring that during lunch, afternoon nap, and dinner times the boat stays as silent as possible.

The night-mode feature allows having basic communication systems fully operational while adjusting air-condition into low consumption mode in total silence during night hours. Current capacity allows up to 7 hours of noiseless functionality.

Windrose of Amsterdam currently sails throughout the Pacific archipelagos while we, at Phoenix Connect, design the next phase of electrical hybridization – the vessel´s battery bank expansion.

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Peak shaving

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Time shifting

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Power back-up

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Synchronization

Interested? Contact us or read motor yacht case study

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF

Phoenix Connect milestone path to converting to a comfortable and low emission yacht.

ESS INSTALLATION
Energy Storage System eliminates noise and vibrations leaving the boat operating in total silence. While anchored enjoy lunch or dinner with only the rumor of the sea or ambient music during your time onboard, as the vessel maintains all its services running.

VSS INSTALLATION
Vessel Synchronization System increases reliability of the electric network onboard, making it a solid system to use in-port or at anchor. Enjoy your silent yacht while the interconnected generators recharge the ESS equipment.

HYBRIDIZATION
Hybrid or fully electric propulsion lowers the noise and vibrations of main engines. This translates directly into the ultimate comfort sensation, while benefiting from a reliable cruise under electric propulsion. The yacht may operate almost in total silence both cruising and at anchor.

DAILY POWER USAGE

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PEAK SHAVING

Optimize the energy flow between generators and energy storage in order to meet abrupt spikes of power demand onboard. Keep the generators at their optimal performance level at all times.

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TIME SHIFTING

Store energy constantly and automatically when guests are off the boat, or your generators are out of their performance peak. Keep the boat generator free, while you have guests onboard to avoid smoke, noise and vibrations.

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POWER BACK-UP

Draw on the energy stored when guests are onboard, during lunch on deck or night time to ensure a fully silent space. Stay unnoticed during operation system backups while mechanical maintenance occurs.

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SYNCHRONIZATION

Synchronize power sources creating a redundant and powerful grid. Seamlessly arrive and depart ports with flawless shore synchronization with the vessel’s grid.

Interested? Contact us or read motor yacht case study

SOLUTION LOGIC LAYER LAYOUT

SHORE CONNECTION

Connect the yacht to the harbor’s grid through a shore converter to avoid unnecessary costs and usage of generators. The shore converter module is world-wide compatible regardless of the network parameters of your vessel. Protect your systems onboard with the ESS redundancy pack.
Positively contribute to ease the environmental impact of local harbors by keeping diesel engines shut.

VSS

The Vessel Synchronization System joins all possible power sources providing maximum amount of power and reliability, regardless of the number of connected inputs. A strong backbone provides worry free operations.

GATO and BIRD

The brain of the system operates GATO, a lightweight Power Management System. Using our BIRD cloud platform allows you to monitor and report the status of onboard systems anytime in an easy and user-friendly manner.

VSS IMPLEMENTATION CASE STUDY

55 LOA MOTOR YACHT

REFIT PERIOD

A 55m of length charter motor yacht launched on 2009 is about to have 10 years scheduled maintenance. Big part of the electrical and electronic systems is to be renewed. Part of the equipment will need to be exchanged, other upgraded or repaired.

LUXURIOUS AMBIENT

The boat anchors at night in a remote and quiet bay. To keep the boat alive, a running generator is needed. To keep the boat operational both generators are running to create a stable and redundant onboard grid in case one of the engines fails.

Unfortunately, this very common scenario is far from ideal, as your guests are experiencing:
• High noise during anchorage, disturbing guests and the relaxed atmosphere
• Standby generator fuel consumption
• Possible vibrations on deck
• Offensive exhaust smell passing through the decks

PhoenixConnect offers you customized solutions to reduce your fuel consumption costs, lower CO2, NOX and SOX emissions, reduce your vessel´s carbon footprint… so you can experience a real exclusive break onboard.

At Phoenix Connect we have a solution package just for you.

DESIGN

This case study synchronizes all available onboard power sources into one grid. The silent operation and backup system are required to provide over 4h silent runtime.

The project consists on providing the grid with peak-shaving capacity and automatic synchronization of all power sources. The ESS system is implemented to provide 6 hours silent mode operation with minimum “survival” load. Peak-shaving enables gen-set to double their power with ESS.
The vessel’s bow should be available at any time for safe operation. That requires spare power to be always available. GATO PMS is monitoring current energy and power distortion.

System is equipped with redundant equipment able to provide 205kW of instant power each giving total power of maximum 410kW. A liquid cool solution provides 20dBA less noise comparing to air cooled systems and fits into the existing heat exchange system.

SUMMARY

Having an overview of all the equipment, not only one part; looking ahead of time for further changes in technology: when more power is required onboard, crucial grid components need repair… your boat operations can easily benefit in future costs savings and/or save up on CAPEX, while you improve your guest experience and make every moment unforgettable.