Current Trends in the Solar Electric Boat Industry

If you are thinking about purchasing a solar electric boat, you might need to wait for a few years before you are able to get a really good one.  Solar boating technology is lagging behind the similar electric technology used in some cars.  That is to be expected however, as even when the internal combustion engine was introduced it was placed into cars well before boats started rolling off the line powered by it.

To give you an idea of just how new some of the solar boating technology out there is, 2007 was the first time that a solar boat was able to cross the Atlantic Ocean.  Not much has changed in the last two years and with very few consumers willing to take chances on the electric boats that are available to purchase, solar boating technology is still far from maturity.

That having been said, there are some decent purchases available on the market.  Just about any seaworthy boat powered by solar energy is powered by the marine solar engine, the one generally seaworthy component that exists.  It uses solar cells to collect sunlight and then convert that sunlight into electricity.  The electricity created is stored in a battery and then used to power a propeller. This is exactly how many other boats work as well with the one difference being that solar energy is the power source.