Evaluating the Application Feasibility of Lithium-Battery Electric Propulsion for Fishing Boats

Many small vessels such as fishing boats operate in the world"s oceans; accordingly, interest in these small vessels’ exhaust-gas problem is increasing. Research on the application of electric-propulsion technology has been steadily conducted; however, the subject is limited to research ships or leisure boats, while research on application efficiency remains insufficient. This study attempts to apply lithium-battery electric-propulsion technology to small ships. A gross tonnage of 9.77, a representative fishing boat, is to be redesigned as a fully electrified ship. Without changing the main cabin’s dimensions and fuel tanks, the ship’s propulsion system is redesigned based on a lithium-battery electric-propulsion system. In addition, the redesigned system is compared with the original sample ship"s diesel-propulsion system for application-effect analysis. The results indicate that under controlled sailing conditions, the weight and volume of the electric-propulsion system are 9.5 and 10.5 times those of the diesel-propulsion system, respectively. These values indicate that the system cannot meet fishing boats" high endurance requirements. Therefore, under the existing technical conditions, applying the full lithium-battery electric-propulsion system to solve the problem of high emissions from fishing boats shows limited feasibility.