Yacht Club de Monaco (YCM) has installed an autonomous green hydrogen pontoon in preparation for the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge taking place in the summer.
The pontoon will be able to fill 30 cylinders and supply eight teams with green hydrogen to help reduce the event’s carbon footprint and promote usage of eco-responsible energy resources.
“The Monaco Energy Boat Challenge was launched 11 years ago,” said YCM general secretary Bernard d’Alessandri. “It is very satisfying to see how far we have progressed. Even with limited resources it is now possible to produce green hydrogen.”
The pontoon weighs 1.3 tonnes and has a 20m2 surface area of floating solar panels linked to twice as many batteries to produce hydrogen continuously day and night with a cylinder fill-time of 1 litre/minute.
Remote-control
The pontoon also incorporates a remote-control system to monitor electrolyser flow, battery charge, the heating and cooling system, as well as sensors, alarms and a dehumidifier.
“An ever-increasing demand for safe, sustainable, affordable energy presents one of the biggest challenges of our time. As offshore pioneers, we are convinced the oceans hold the key to meet an urgent need for low-carbon solutions, with hydrogen being part of that response,” explained Francesco Prazzo, general manager, SBM Offshore.
Other environmental initiatives YCM is working on include conserving resources by recycling water from its swimming pool using technology developed by FGWRS.
More than one million litres of water have already been treated in this way, equivalent to half an Olympic-size pool. Water from the FGWRS system is also used to clean boats and to water plants via a device called Aqua Sail in the form of recycled water cubes.
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