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Comment by hwillis

21 hours ago

Wow, this is a really good paper. Supplementary info is really great too- they get into details down to floating charging port stations as part of the infrastructure. Surprising how much demand is from tugboats. I have questions about how you'd safely hook up 5 MW connections, but it's definitely solvable.

Tugboats are a perfect use for battery electric boats! Most tugs work close to a port, they don't need to travel very far, need to be extraordinarily powerful for their size, and they need to change power output rapidly to manoeuvre a ship.

A harbour tug internally is almost entirely engine. Well, two engines, because an engine failure during tug operations is almost always disastrous.

There are IEC 60309 industrial power connectors that can handle 8MW (1000V, 800A).

There are also power connectors for cruise ships while they are in dock that handle lots of power. It looks like they use IEC 80005 for shore power. It looks like it is AC only but probably could be made to use DC.