Solar Panels on Boats Is The Future

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The wonderful part about being on the ocean is to really enjoy nature

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in its realm. To hear the quiet, to hear the birds

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chirping in the background. Maybe, if you're lucky, a whale coming

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up for a breath. Maybe hearing some sea lions in the background.

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hearing the waves hit up against your boat. This is the wonderful part about

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being on the ocean. It's one thing that I, as a biologist, marine

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biologist, have been able to participate in and enjoy for

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a long time. But then there's the other part of being on a boat where

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you hear the workings of the boat. You hear the engines, you

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hear the noise of everything that goes on, the

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smell of that diesel gas that you have, and you're just like, ooh,

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I really wish I didn't have to smell that. I really wish that that didn't

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ruin my experience here on the ocean. And there has

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been an effort, a large effort, to get

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more electrified on the ocean. Not getting electrocuted,

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but electrified in your boat. And so that means a quiet engine. That

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means you're able to enjoy nature as it's supposed to be enjoyed.

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And plus, cause less noise and disruption in the ocean.

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You can be on the water more without feeling guilty, especially if

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you were worried about noise and whales and how everything

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affects there. Well, today on the episode, I am speaking with

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Simon Angus from Open Water Solar. He is here to

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talk about his business where he has created durable, flexible

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solar panels to go onto your boat to help you get more

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electrified on the water. And it's amazing and

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I can't wait to show you. So let's start the show here on the How to

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Protect the Ocean podcast. Hey

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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I

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am your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the

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ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better

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ocean by taking action. And on today's episode, like

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I said, we have Simon Angus, who is the CEO of

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Open Water Solar, a company that makes flexible, durable

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solar panels for your boat. This is

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a way to help you stay with electric sources of

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energy. This is a way to get your boat running quieter

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on the ocean. And I think it's a way that we need to move forward. And I feel like the

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industry is moving forward. In the interview, Simon highlights how

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the industry is really moving towards being more electric,

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going towards a hybrid model instead of just I

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think that's really good. I think it's a step in the right direction, especially

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from a commercial space. which is where the Open Water

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Solar is focusing on. It is really a necessary item,

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as Simon says in this interview. So this is a really important

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interview, especially if you are someone who loves to be on the water, on

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a boat, this is something that you really need to listen to. And I can't wait

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for you to hear the entire interview. Here is the interview with Simon Angus

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from Open Water Solar. Enjoy, and I will talk to you after. Hey,

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Simon, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready

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Alright, I love this. This is gonna be a ton of fun. I'm so

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pumped about this. I love boats I love being on the water but

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I don't know much about being on the water because I haven't been enough because I live in

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Ontario and I don't have access to boats and stuff like that, but we're

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here with Simon Simon is a guy who loves the

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ocean just like us and he loves to be on the water and

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he is solving a problem right now that he had himself and we're

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gonna talk about that problem and why it's so good and for

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everybody else to have. So we're going to talk all about that and why it's good for

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the ocean. And I'm super excited. But Simon, before we get into

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Yeah. So I'm a mechanical engineer. I spent 20 plus

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Counter to what we're trying to do now. But in

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2019, being an engineer and a sailor, I made a break and

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I left my pretty well-paying job to be

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broke for the next five years. And I designed and built a 40-foot

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carbon fiber, all-electric sailing catamaran. And

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really, that's where this started, is we wanted to produce an

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all-electric boat that was truly sustainable in terms of

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its power consumption, that there was no diesel generators, and

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it was fully electric. And

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we failed. But we had success in

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I love how it's like, and we failed, but we had success in something else. I think that's the

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life of an entrepreneur in problem solving, right? I think it's really interesting.

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Very much so. Let's go back into your life becoming a

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mechanical engineer. Were you always interested

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Yeah, I was in school. I was good at maths and science, so nobody

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who who's good at maths and science goes and does anything else

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generally than engineering. So I went and did that, but I had

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a love for the ocean. So back then I couldn't afford a boat.

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I was a poor student, so I had a windsurfer. And so

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I spent every weekend I could and even

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some university days when I should have been in lectures on the water, sailing

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around and having fun on a windsurfer. And

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it was only when I moved to Canada that I just was like, wow,

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this coastline is amazing. And the quality of life, the

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So I have to ask, so windsurfer, do you mean like surfboard

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with the triangular sail and you're standing on? Is that

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the windsurfer you're talking about? Or are you talking about a specific boat

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No, windsurfing. So the more scaled mast. And

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yeah, we had a lot

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of fun. We were big wave sailors back then, back in the 90s.

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And I love that. But now this is the UK we're

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talking about, right? Yep. That's some cold

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Yeah, you need a pretty good wetsuit if you're in the Irish Sea and

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you're windsurfing. And there's only ever wind in the winter, right?

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It's never in the summer. So we

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So what's the temperature of the water at that point? You're talking about wintertime. What's the

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Really cold. I've actually skated down the beach on ice to

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go windsurfing. Maybe that session only lasted half an

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Hey, but you did it. You did it. You could say you skated to

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go windsurfing. I love it. That's such a Canadian thing to do as well, right?

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I love it. And you got into it because you loved

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it, but you really have to love it. you know, when you first pick

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up that, that windsurfing board, right? Because it's, it's, you're in cold

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water. It's not ideal conditions, like in the tropics, like what we normally

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see. What, what made you like your mindset was

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It's just that thrill. It's, uh, it's just you and nature. Right.

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And it's that thrill of, of jumping and

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looping and, and, uh, just having fun on the waves and

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just being out there. It's just. you and nature and having

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It's not an easy sport to do. I know that. I have a friend who did it here

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It took a couple of years to pick it up. But once you've got the bug, that's it. You're hooked.

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And it's like any sort of water

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Yeah. Yeah, it's true. And like you said, you're, you're out on

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the ocean. It's you in the ocean. Right. And no matter what

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the conditions are, obviously it's going to be a little wavy. It's going to be, cause it's windy.

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Um, and you're kind of at the, at the behest of this, this

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massive body of water. You really get the idea of like,

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this is huge. Like this, I'm in a, I'm in a place that is beautiful. It's

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gorgeous. It can be dangerous at times, you know, I'm going to be as safe as

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Oh yeah, I'll remember one point in time when me and a buddy were sailing, and

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we always sailed in pairs, and the masts we used were

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4.6 meters high, and he was on one side of the wave, I was on the other,

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and I lost the sight of his mast. The waves were that big.

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And so I thought he'd gone down, and about 15 seconds

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later, he popped over the top, and I'm like, oh, there you are, Damon. And

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he's like, yeah, I nearly got munched on that one. Oh

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my God, that's insane. Just the sheer power, you understand that

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A hundred percent. Yeah. Now, when you came over to British

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Columbia, you all the way to the UK to British Columbia, was it for a job

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Yeah, exactly. So I went to Kinnamat initially and I worked at a

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pulp mill. And so I ended up on the West Coast and I've never seen anything

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Now is this, so you worked at oil and gas in the UK and

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Yeah. Well, engineer in, in sort of, uh, various, various

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University, but moved to Canada with

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the family. And then Kinemat was a place

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on the West coast of about 8,000 people. And, uh, it

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snowed about six feet per day in the, in the winter. Um, but

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the odd day when it was sunny, uh, in the summer. Yeah.

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And you sail on the ocean, there's a 1,000 foot waterfall coming off a

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mountain straight into the ocean. It doesn't get any better than that. It

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Just the scenery of British Columbia in general, with the

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backdrop of forests, ocean, and

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mountains, makes it just absolutely ideal from

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if you're a photographer or just somebody who just loves to sit

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and relax. It really makes you think about how uh,

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impactful nature can be to your, just your mental health in general, right?

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Like, Oh, absolutely. I have a goal which I want to execute

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on very quickly in the next couple of years is that's the ski

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That's possible. That's very possible. We can do that. So. Oh,

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wow. Yeah. You should vlog that. You

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should film that, because I would love to see that. That would be kind of a cool thing.

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I think that would do well on something like YouTube, to be like, I'm

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going to ski, mountain bike, and sail on the same day in

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That's fantastic. You're working

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for industries at this time, various industries, but

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they're industries that use natural resources like

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oil and gas, pulp and paper. They have this, and

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I've been there too. I've worked as a private environmental consultant

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before with oil and gas and mining industries. I

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didn't work with pulp and paper, more mining, especially that I specialize with

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to make sure they're following regulations. Obviously, engineers have

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to meet certain numbers and regulations for

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various aspects of what the job they're doing, right? What

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was your thought process when you're doing it? You love nature so much. You're working for these industries.

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Obviously, you're trying to do the best job you can. Did you ever wonder like, Because

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I did this. I'm like, I wonder, is this really worth it? Is

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this the kind of industry that I want to be in where I know it's

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harming the environment, but I need a job and I want to be able to

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do something. But something in the back of my head is like, I feel like

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Very much so. It does trouble

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you when you're in that world. And my response to that is,

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well, it can be done sort

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of efficiently and effectively and with minimal effect

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to the environment. And I'd rather me

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as an engineer do that than an accountant. And I fell out with accountants a

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lot of times because they're saying, we've got to

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amount of the books. And I'm like, well, you know, because it's

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not environment friendly or it's not safe, right? So those two

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You definitely highlight something that's extremely important here is I

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think the industry gets lumped in as the industry, you know, natural

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resource industry. The people that work there a lot

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of the times are trying to do the best they can to make

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it as environmentally friendly as possible. You know, people

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are meeting the regulations. They're bending over backwards to do

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what they need to do to help the environment. It's not always

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the case of It's not always the workers, the engineers, the

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people on the pipes and things like that that are doing a

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bad job. They're doing their job and they're doing it the best they can. I think

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it just gets lumped up as a whole industry. People

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think the people who own it are greedy and they just want more money and they don't care

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about the environment. But then you get the people who work in there, who live in

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the towns and in the remote areas where they go, and they

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want to see something good. They want to make sure their homes are fine

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Yeah, absolutely. You've just

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got to do the best job you can with what you've got and lead

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from your own. sort of morals and ethics when

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it comes down to the environment. You see somebody doing something, you

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Yeah. A hundred percent. Now you had a big pivot at that point,

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like obviously the big pivot moving from the UK to move to BC. And

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then you have a big pivot of like, Hey, you know what? I'm just going to say, I'm

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earning a good amount of money here. Like I'm comfortable and I can live

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on my own and I can do what I can, whether I want to ski, bike or,

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or sail, right. Not the same day or different days. Uh, it's

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pretty nice life that you had going on. Then you're like, you know what? I

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don't like money that much. I'm going to be poor for like five years,

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not earn money for five years, but I'm going to develop something interesting.

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But the first iteration, as you said, that you said you

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failed at was to build a boat yourself. Why

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So it was like being an engineer and a sailor, I decided to

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put my skill set and my passion together. And at

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the end of the day, you've got to do what you love. Yeah. Engineering

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and sailing is what I love. So I put them together and design

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and build this 40-foot sailing catamaran, amazing

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sailboat. We were sailing at 17 knots of boat speed

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and 22 knots of breeze. just phenomenal, phenomenal

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boat. And the goal was really to make it all electric. That was

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the key. It had to be lightweight, fast, lots of hydrogeneration, but

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it also had a lot of solar generation as well, because we didn't want to have

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to even use sort

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of like mains grid electricity. We didn't want to charge up. We

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wanted the boat to be fully self-sufficient. And the

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00:14:36,584 --> 00:14:40,327
solar sucked that bad that we had to go sailing to hydrogenerate to

223
00:14:40,347 --> 00:14:43,773
charge the batteries. And that's where we

224
00:14:43,813 --> 00:14:47,514
were like, OK, we've got to fix this solar problem. This is a big problem. And

225
00:14:47,634 --> 00:14:51,035
it's not just for my boat that I designed that we

226
00:14:51,055 --> 00:14:55,076
had the problem. But when we set out and built

227
00:14:55,296 --> 00:14:59,817
this catamaran, we knew nothing about solar. And

228
00:15:00,517 --> 00:15:03,958
it was only through understanding and learning

229
00:15:03,998 --> 00:15:07,642
about solar that we realized that the current solutions

230
00:15:07,682 --> 00:15:11,184
really weren't that good. There's basically the regular solar

231
00:15:11,204 --> 00:15:14,327
panels that you put on your house, which I wasn't going to put on a

232
00:15:16,929 --> 00:15:20,211
Aluminum frame, really heavy solar panels. Or

233
00:15:20,251 --> 00:15:23,574
there's the leisure type, the semi-flex ones. And what we realized with those is

234
00:15:23,614 --> 00:15:26,816
they have three fundamental flaws. The first one being real

235
00:15:26,856 --> 00:15:30,239
estate utilization. They come in standard panels, standard

236
00:15:30,259 --> 00:15:33,882
sort of rectangles. And you can only fit so many on the roof of the boat. And

237
00:15:33,922 --> 00:15:37,255
then you end up with a lot of wasted space. The third problem with

238
00:15:37,295 --> 00:15:41,157
them is they suffer micro cracks horrendously. They're

239
00:15:41,177 --> 00:15:45,160
just two pieces of plastic encapsulated in the cell, and

240
00:15:45,380 --> 00:15:48,822
you look at them wrong and they crack. You carry them wrong on the install, they

241
00:15:48,842 --> 00:15:53,185
crack. And so having all the cells in series means

242
00:15:53,225 --> 00:15:56,547
that if one cell sort of starts to degrade and the current

243
00:15:56,567 --> 00:15:59,909
drops, then the whole panel's affected. And if multiple panels are connected

244
00:16:02,731 --> 00:16:05,958
Um, so, so, and then there's the shading issue. It's a sailboat. We've got a rig.

245
00:16:05,978 --> 00:16:09,485
We've got a boom. We've got a mask. We got lots of other Reagan and lots of shading going

246
00:16:09,545 --> 00:16:13,004
on. So. Again, having shaded solar cells

247
00:16:14,285 --> 00:16:17,727
really cuts down the performance. So we had these problems and

248
00:16:17,867 --> 00:16:21,128
we set out to solve them. If we were to, as

249
00:16:21,248 --> 00:16:24,850
a sort of an objective for originally for our boat, so

250
00:16:24,890 --> 00:16:28,372
we could have a truly sustainable sort of sailboat,

251
00:16:28,432 --> 00:16:31,573
which we didn't need to plug in or run a generator. But then we realized it was

252
00:16:31,834 --> 00:16:35,976
more than that. And we could really sort of, we

253
00:16:36,016 --> 00:16:39,557
could really facilitate the, the

254
00:16:39,597 --> 00:16:42,778
electrification of the marine and other industries if we were

255
00:16:42,798 --> 00:16:46,799
able to achieve what we set out

256
00:16:47,639 --> 00:16:51,380
The goal was to have a standalone solar panel or

257
00:16:51,640 --> 00:16:54,921
a number of solar panels on a boat. I assume the

258
00:16:54,961 --> 00:16:58,182
number of solar panels depend on the size of the boat to get the boat

259
00:16:58,222 --> 00:17:01,357
going. that didn't need to plug in when you're on

260
00:17:01,397 --> 00:17:04,738
the shore. And so that's why you have the solar panel. So you want an electric

261
00:17:04,758 --> 00:17:07,860
boat that didn't need to plug in, because there are some boats that you need to plug in.

262
00:17:08,360 --> 00:17:13,562
This one, you don't need to plug in. You just get it from the ocean. That's

263
00:17:13,602 --> 00:17:16,743
wonderful. That sounds like the ideal place. It's supposed to

264
00:17:16,763 --> 00:17:19,945
be light. It's supposed to be semi-flexible, as you mentioned, so

265
00:17:20,005 --> 00:17:24,187
it can fit like a boat contour. It'll look like it's part of the boat. That's

266
00:17:24,327 --> 00:17:27,728
great. doesn't sound like there are many of those available. And

267
00:17:27,788 --> 00:17:30,890
so, and you obviously the ones that are have some problems with it.

268
00:17:31,370 --> 00:17:34,971
So how does, like, how does that go? Like, obviously,

269
00:17:35,131 --> 00:17:38,313
it's a challenge for you as an engineer, you're like, I'm going to make this work. Like,

270
00:17:38,933 --> 00:17:42,195
where do you say, where's my like, when when do you say, like, this

271
00:17:42,255 --> 00:17:45,656
is my breaking point of it, if it works, or it doesn't work? Or how

272
00:17:49,438 --> 00:17:53,199
Um, basically, it's a it's a commitment thing. So we found 500 ways

273
00:17:53,260 --> 00:17:57,396
on not to build our product. We

274
00:17:57,456 --> 00:18:00,618
knew we had to encapsulate the solar cells in

275
00:18:00,678 --> 00:18:03,841
fiberglass. The goal there was to make it

276
00:18:04,121 --> 00:18:07,284
strong, lightweight, durable. We had to

277
00:18:07,364 --> 00:18:12,928
create incredibly clear fiberglass by

278
00:18:12,948 --> 00:18:16,932
putting an incredibly impermeable object right

279
00:18:16,952 --> 00:18:20,795
in the middle of the fiberglass laminate. And that was the challenge. And

280
00:18:20,835 --> 00:18:24,462
it had to be completely optically clear. So

281
00:18:24,502 --> 00:18:28,783
we didn't get any degradation in performance of the cells. And

282
00:18:29,023 --> 00:18:32,464
so that's what we've done is this is just a very small sample of that panel.

283
00:18:32,984 --> 00:18:36,165
As you can see, this is a non-slip version. You can walk on them.

284
00:18:37,066 --> 00:18:40,767
And it just looks like a black panel. It's a black piece of fiberglass with

285
00:18:45,428 --> 00:18:49,309
No, it doesn't. And it's that thin. So it's 1.3 millimeters thick. Wow.

286
00:18:49,589 --> 00:18:52,830
Incredibly lightweight. Yeah. It's flexible. Yeah.

287
00:18:53,966 --> 00:18:57,607
And you can beat it. And you

288
00:18:57,627 --> 00:19:01,108
have no micro-cracking because all of that stress and

289
00:19:01,188 --> 00:19:05,268
force is taken in by the fiberglass instead of

290
00:19:05,288 --> 00:19:08,649
the plastic. So there's no elongation for the cell to crack into.

291
00:19:14,330 --> 00:19:17,511
Again, about 500 ways on not to do it. And it

292
00:19:17,551 --> 00:19:21,792
took quite a while, about 18 months of R&D to

293
00:19:21,832 --> 00:19:24,918
figure out the secret sauce and

294
00:19:24,938 --> 00:19:28,141
the magic to make it happen. And

295
00:19:28,181 --> 00:19:31,484
then, obviously, we were building them manually, which isn't

296
00:19:31,524 --> 00:19:34,646
cost effective in Canada. The labor costs are far too

297
00:19:34,686 --> 00:19:38,810
high. So now we're in the process of automating that

298
00:19:38,870 --> 00:19:42,173
entire production. So we can manufacture in

299
00:19:42,193 --> 00:19:45,415
Canada. That was, again, another goal of building the boat and the goal

300
00:19:45,435 --> 00:19:48,598
of the company was we can manufacture in Canada and we can

301
00:19:52,128 --> 00:19:55,510
Gotcha. So now when did you start this company? Was it

302
00:19:56,010 --> 00:19:59,532
2019 technically, like as building the boat, but then pivoting

303
00:20:01,533 --> 00:20:04,694
Yeah. So 2019, we started, we started a little bit before that. We built a

304
00:20:04,755 --> 00:20:08,096
canoe and an ACAT, a foiling ACAT. Um,

305
00:20:08,476 --> 00:20:11,738
and then just sort of learn about composites, learn about sort of boat

306
00:20:11,758 --> 00:20:15,180
design, boat building. And then yeah, 2019 we went straight

307
00:20:15,240 --> 00:20:18,562
in and started the, the, the, started to build the molds for

308
00:20:21,704 --> 00:20:24,885
Got you. And, and now you're at a point now, where

309
00:20:24,905 --> 00:20:28,146
are you at? Are you at a point where you can mass produce these and you can actually

310
00:20:29,366 --> 00:20:32,447
Yeah. So we have about 15 or so pilot projects out there on the

311
00:20:32,487 --> 00:20:35,987
water, uh, all sort of different stages of product development.

312
00:20:36,588 --> 00:20:39,908
Uh, but we're now at a spot where we've, uh, about three months ago, we

313
00:20:39,968 --> 00:20:43,549
nailed down the exact sort of recipe, the process. Uh,

314
00:20:43,589 --> 00:20:47,450
and now we're looking to get into full production. Uh, our,

315
00:20:47,570 --> 00:20:50,991
our order back is about four or five months long at our current production

316
00:20:51,011 --> 00:20:54,155
rates. but we're looking to increase production over

317
00:20:54,175 --> 00:20:57,516
the next couple of months and then really get out there to the market and

318
00:20:59,736 --> 00:21:03,037
allow people to put as much solar as they can and

319
00:21:03,257 --> 00:21:07,039
basically on their boats to again facilitate the electrification

320
00:21:07,119 --> 00:21:10,339
of the marine and transportation sectors. And that's where

321
00:21:10,380 --> 00:21:14,481
we're heading is anything that moves, anything that's in harsh environments, our

322
00:21:16,516 --> 00:21:20,019
Now it's really funny because you make that last little paragraph that

323
00:21:20,039 --> 00:21:23,502
you just told me there, that answer, you made it sound like it was like nothing. That's

324
00:21:23,562 --> 00:21:26,745
pretty exciting. 15 pilot projects and he's found like

325
00:21:26,765 --> 00:21:30,148
the actual formula now. You know what to make. That's

326
00:21:30,208 --> 00:21:33,511
super exciting to see. And now you're saying like,

327
00:21:33,531 --> 00:21:37,394
look, we're going to start putting it out so they can get as many. uh,

328
00:21:37,434 --> 00:21:40,956
solar panels on it. So these are not necessarily going to be solar panels on

329
00:21:41,037 --> 00:21:44,679
new boats. You can add them to your own existing boat.

330
00:21:45,860 --> 00:21:49,502
Yeah. So you can basically, we can build any size, any shape. Um,

331
00:21:49,582 --> 00:21:52,684
so you can add them to, uh, existing boats. There'll be

332
00:21:52,704 --> 00:21:56,006
a new boats. Um, uh, so yeah,

333
00:21:56,046 --> 00:21:59,408
you, you basically build a template, take a picture of the template and we

334
00:21:59,488 --> 00:22:02,741
can build the solar panel to suit. So we can

335
00:22:02,881 --> 00:22:06,623
curve to the curve to the shape of the boats and really maximize

336
00:22:06,663 --> 00:22:10,384
that real estate utilization because solar is not perfect.

337
00:22:10,444 --> 00:22:13,646
It's only right now 24, 25% efficient in terms

338
00:22:13,706 --> 00:22:17,187
of the energy you're getting from the sun. So the conversion rates are not great.

339
00:22:17,667 --> 00:22:21,148
So by the time you take into account the little gaps

340
00:22:21,228 --> 00:22:24,670
between the solar cells, we're about 250 watts per meter squared.

341
00:22:25,770 --> 00:22:29,691
And that's not a lot. So you really want to utilize that

342
00:22:29,732 --> 00:22:33,057
real estate as much as you can. And for a boat, we've actually

343
00:22:33,077 --> 00:22:37,219
came up with a protocol floating solar. So it's fundamentally

344
00:22:37,259 --> 00:22:40,901
an inflatable paddleboard type design, which accordions out

345
00:22:41,181 --> 00:22:44,222
and you throw it behind your boat. And it's a 300 watt panel and it

346
00:22:44,262 --> 00:22:47,644
just sits there without any shade and just sits there and generates

347
00:22:47,684 --> 00:22:51,166
power. That's amazing. So again, that's solving

348
00:22:51,206 --> 00:22:54,727
the real estate utilization problem for mostly for monohulls.

349
00:23:12,090 --> 00:23:15,211
cloudy outside, you're not going to be able to go anywhere. Can you

350
00:23:15,231 --> 00:23:19,152
talk just a little bit about some of the myths of solar and

351
00:23:19,412 --> 00:23:22,513
are they true or not, or some of the things that people say about solar that you may

352
00:23:22,553 --> 00:23:25,913
have heard, like are they true, are they not, what's true, what's not, what

353
00:23:25,953 --> 00:23:29,294
do people have to look at when they start to think about using solar on

354
00:23:31,355 --> 00:23:34,556
Yeah, so all the myths or whatever people hear

355
00:23:34,596 --> 00:23:37,738
are true because they come up with them, And it's

356
00:23:37,778 --> 00:23:41,340
a direct experience of people. One of the things that we realized is

357
00:23:41,420 --> 00:23:46,204
that designing a solar system for a boat actually isn't easy. How

358
00:23:46,264 --> 00:23:51,968
the panels are wired together, the voltage that

359
00:23:51,988 --> 00:23:55,851
you use, the battery voltage, the

360
00:23:55,931 --> 00:23:59,368
bypassed out orientation, All of those things

361
00:23:59,429 --> 00:24:02,491
have to come into account, even the direction that the

362
00:24:02,531 --> 00:24:05,614
solar panel faces. If you have one solar panel on

363
00:24:05,714 --> 00:24:08,817
one surface and it faces a slightly different direction to the

364
00:24:08,857 --> 00:24:12,180
sun than the other surface, then it's the one that has

365
00:24:12,981 --> 00:24:16,144
the least sun angle that is going to

366
00:24:16,224 --> 00:24:19,549
drive the performance of the panel. Same with shading as

367
00:24:19,589 --> 00:24:23,095
well with bypass diodes. If you orientate the panel the wrong direction and

368
00:24:23,616 --> 00:24:27,223
you cast a shadow over the panel, well, you could either eliminate

369
00:24:27,263 --> 00:24:31,516
just one string or you can eliminate the entire panel from the circuit. So,

370
00:24:31,836 --> 00:24:35,437
there's a lot to think about when we do do a design for

371
00:24:35,837 --> 00:24:38,898
a boat, especially a sailboat. On a

372
00:24:38,918 --> 00:24:42,619
boat, obviously, there's less shading, less issues, but

373
00:24:42,679 --> 00:24:46,240
again, still got to be thoughtful in terms of voltages, current, whether

374
00:24:46,260 --> 00:24:49,541
it's going to be series or parallel, what solar controls to use.

375
00:24:50,461 --> 00:24:53,922
So, we don't recommend just people go in to put a panel

376
00:24:53,962 --> 00:24:57,203
on the boat and say, now I've got solar, because they won't.

377
00:24:59,079 --> 00:25:02,260
They won't have good performance. So you really got

378
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:06,702
to think about it, how the panels are orientated, how they're strung together, how

379
00:25:06,722 --> 00:25:10,103
the bypass diodes are orientated. All

380
00:25:10,123 --> 00:25:13,605
those things have got to be thought about when you start to design your

381
00:25:15,083 --> 00:25:18,366
Yeah, it's really interesting to think about that. And then a lot of boat,

382
00:25:18,866 --> 00:25:22,649
people who have boats, they're really in tune with their boats. They know what's

383
00:25:22,789 --> 00:25:26,312
needed and what's not. So I feel like having, this is a good market

384
00:25:26,352 --> 00:25:29,555
to work with because looking at

385
00:25:29,755 --> 00:25:33,998
what they do with their boat, how often they service their boat, and

386
00:25:34,219 --> 00:25:37,421
they get to know it quite well, it'd be easy to work with them. So I guess

387
00:25:37,441 --> 00:25:42,445
a lot of these jobs would be almost like a custom, sort

388
00:25:42,485 --> 00:25:45,667
of job right because you don't know because everybody's going to be different in terms of how many

389
00:25:48,129 --> 00:25:51,351
Exactly so we do have standard products that you can just go

390
00:25:51,371 --> 00:25:54,593
and put on the boat but again not that successful in terms of how much

391
00:25:54,673 --> 00:25:57,834
power you're going to generate but then when it comes to sort

392
00:25:58,135 --> 00:26:01,577
of more of the electrification of the drive system and

393
00:26:01,617 --> 00:26:04,699
you've become more reliant on solar now rather than

394
00:26:04,719 --> 00:26:07,893
a nice to have It's got to be designed right, so we

395
00:26:07,933 --> 00:26:12,823
get into doing custom designs, working

396
00:26:12,863 --> 00:26:16,972
around hatches. rigging lines, travelers,

397
00:26:17,012 --> 00:26:20,794
and things like that. And so we can maximize the

398
00:26:20,814 --> 00:26:24,395
amount of real estate and then minimize the amount of downtime from

399
00:26:26,035 --> 00:26:29,416
Yeah, well, interesting. What about in terms

400
00:26:29,476 --> 00:26:32,817
of efficiency, like clouds? Obviously, you're up in Canada. It

401
00:26:33,137 --> 00:26:37,819
gets cloudy at times. Are people going

402
00:26:41,860 --> 00:26:45,362
Yeah, it's definitely an issue. Solar relies on the sun. When

403
00:26:45,402 --> 00:26:48,643
it's bright out, in terms of light cloud, you can

404
00:26:48,663 --> 00:26:52,024
get up to 25% out of a solar panel. Obviously, a

405
00:26:52,064 --> 00:26:56,564
really thick, cloudy day, maybe you're down to 5%. But

406
00:26:56,925 --> 00:27:00,265
at the end of the day, most of us are using our boats in the summer when

407
00:27:00,285 --> 00:27:03,946
it's nice out. And then we've got lots of solar, right?

408
00:27:06,547 --> 00:27:09,827
After they ski and

409
00:27:13,991 --> 00:27:18,012
But yeah, it's definitely a thing, but it's like anything with sailing. You, um,

410
00:27:18,373 --> 00:27:21,494
you have to think about where you're going, what the targets are, what the currents are,

411
00:27:21,534 --> 00:27:24,835
what the wind's doing. Um, and it's just another thing

412
00:27:24,855 --> 00:27:28,216
to think about. What's my power consumption. If, if you're going to commit

413
00:27:28,236 --> 00:27:31,517
to an electric boat, then you add one other

414
00:27:31,657 --> 00:27:34,798
tactic that you've got to deal with, right. In terms of like with

415
00:27:34,838 --> 00:27:38,120
my boat, for example, um, it'll do nine knots under

416
00:27:40,054 --> 00:27:44,096
for about 10 minutes, and then the battery's dead. Or

417
00:27:44,676 --> 00:27:48,398
typically if we're running both 12 kilowatt drives,

418
00:27:48,458 --> 00:27:51,900
full belt, yeah, you've only got a few, maybe 15 minutes.

419
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:55,402
So that means I can't go through some of the narrows in

420
00:27:55,422 --> 00:27:59,324
the wrong tide, where maybe you can with a diesel, because you

421
00:27:59,364 --> 00:28:02,585
don't have the energy density. So again, it's just another thing to

422
00:28:02,625 --> 00:28:06,507
think about as a sailor when you go out. You've

423
00:28:08,956 --> 00:28:12,118
Yeah, and I think it's interesting, too, because I have an

424
00:28:12,178 --> 00:28:15,260
EV, like a car, and I find that I have to

425
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:18,522
do just a little extra planning when I go out to make sure, like if I'm going

426
00:28:18,542 --> 00:28:21,924
on a long trip, I've got to make sure that I can find the right, you

427
00:28:21,964 --> 00:28:25,446
know, where all the chargers are so that I can do it in line and I can continue

428
00:28:25,546 --> 00:28:28,688
on with myself. You don't want to run out of, just like you don't want to run out of gas, you

429
00:28:28,708 --> 00:28:31,850
don't want to run out of electricity. Now, of

430
00:28:31,910 --> 00:28:35,273
course, I have the opportunity to pull over and go to a charger and

431
00:28:35,533 --> 00:28:39,696
charge over as someone with a gas-powered vehicle can go over and

432
00:28:39,816 --> 00:28:42,979
get some gas. That's not always the case in the ocean, depending on

433
00:28:43,079 --> 00:28:46,562
where you're going and areas. You probably want to go to a remote

434
00:28:46,622 --> 00:28:50,865
place and enjoy yourself and do some fishing or swimming

435
00:28:50,905 --> 00:28:54,008
or whatever that might be. We're just sailing around. So

436
00:28:54,029 --> 00:28:57,273
you're not always around. So you have to just plan a little bit just to make sure

437
00:28:57,313 --> 00:29:00,478
that you can have it now. So when people are when you talk about

438
00:29:00,538 --> 00:29:03,883
having an electric boat, like a solar boat like this, are

439
00:29:03,903 --> 00:29:07,609
people using part solar and part like

440
00:29:09,537 --> 00:29:12,940
Yeah, so we've actually, there's been a big, certainly in

441
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:16,263
the new boat world, there's a lot of hybrid boats being built

442
00:29:16,303 --> 00:29:19,646
right now. Whereas we've already done

443
00:29:19,686 --> 00:29:23,449
two projects for hybrid boats where it's a diesel electric.

444
00:29:24,204 --> 00:29:27,486
And that's very efficient when it comes to generating power. You're

445
00:29:27,506 --> 00:29:32,410
running the diesel engine at a constant speed. It's tuned for the generator. And

446
00:29:32,450 --> 00:29:35,712
then when you're doing close marina sort of maneuvers, then

447
00:29:35,752 --> 00:29:40,055
you're just in with the electric drive. We're

448
00:29:40,075 --> 00:29:44,158
doing an 80-foot catamaran right now, where

449
00:29:44,178 --> 00:29:47,921
we're doing 24 kilowatts of solar. It's an 80-foot expedition

450
00:29:47,961 --> 00:29:51,383
yacht, and we'll be able to handle sort of all of the hotel loads

451
00:29:51,403 --> 00:29:54,987
with the solar. So he can sit at an anchorage and

452
00:29:55,027 --> 00:29:58,231
not have to run a diesel generator. If he wants to cross the

453
00:29:58,271 --> 00:30:02,516
Atlantic, yeah, he's going to have to run his engines. Batteries aren't

454
00:30:02,577 --> 00:30:05,984
that good right now. They're going to get better, but

455
00:30:06,024 --> 00:30:09,645
they're not the solution, right? Yeah. So there is compromises

456
00:30:16,629 --> 00:30:20,011
Yeah, and this is just the beginning of it, right? It's just like

457
00:30:20,111 --> 00:30:23,352
EVs in the car industry. they're going to get better and

458
00:30:23,412 --> 00:30:27,134
better as you go along. You are really just starting. As

459
00:30:27,174 --> 00:30:31,015
you said, some of the panels that you tried before you started this venture

460
00:30:31,555 --> 00:30:35,337
weren't the greatest and they chipped a lot and they broke a lot. Now, you're getting

461
00:30:35,357 --> 00:30:38,558
a little bit more durable, you're getting a little bit more length out of it,

462
00:30:38,578 --> 00:30:42,039
a little bit more usability. Then I'm sure over time that

463
00:30:42,119 --> 00:30:45,281
iteration is going to get even longer and longer as you go

464
00:30:45,321 --> 00:30:48,982
through and as you discover more and we do more. I find a lot of people right

465
00:30:49,022 --> 00:30:52,724
now, they expect the best right off the bat. And

466
00:30:52,764 --> 00:30:55,925
that's not how it works. Even the car when it was first invented, it was

467
00:30:55,965 --> 00:30:59,327
never just the best, like the gas powered

468
00:30:59,347 --> 00:31:02,549
car. It was never just like from what we get now to

469
00:31:02,609 --> 00:31:06,151
a Porsche. You know what I mean? It wasn't like that. And it

470
00:31:06,191 --> 00:31:09,413
was slow. And there was a lot of problems with it. And I'm sure people didn't love them

471
00:31:09,433 --> 00:31:12,635
right off the bat. This, I love, I love the fact that you can

472
00:31:12,695 --> 00:31:15,977
do this because even if you run it side by side with a hybrid and

473
00:31:16,057 --> 00:31:19,719
use it with a hybrid engine, at least you're powering it. You're using less noise,

474
00:31:19,739 --> 00:31:23,141
uh, on, on the, on the water. You're enjoying it

475
00:31:23,301 --> 00:31:26,762
a lot more because you can, you don't have to have the noise that

476
00:31:27,163 --> 00:31:30,585
you get to really hear the ocean. When

477
00:31:30,625 --> 00:31:33,887
you're on the water and you want to power through

478
00:31:33,927 --> 00:31:37,070
something, you can really hear nature. You can really hear what's going on,

479
00:31:37,110 --> 00:31:40,512
maybe a whale or two in that time, you never know. You

480
00:31:40,532 --> 00:31:43,675
live in a very productive area, so I think it'd be cool to see

481
00:31:43,715 --> 00:31:47,378
that. But I think that's what is the

482
00:31:47,478 --> 00:31:51,461
real benefit from an ocean perspective is that noise. On

483
00:31:51,481 --> 00:31:54,943
your website, you actually talk about that a little bit, about not creating

484
00:31:55,003 --> 00:31:58,106
noise to protect oceans. Can

485
00:31:59,915 --> 00:32:03,496
Yeah, so like anything, there's like within

486
00:32:03,536 --> 00:32:08,017
BC, we've got BC ferries, they're obviously making huge amounts of noise. Yeah.

487
00:32:08,498 --> 00:32:11,718
But you do what you can, right? And obviously, the studies out there

488
00:32:11,758 --> 00:32:15,279
which have said sort of marine use by humans

489
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:18,560
affects the

490
00:32:18,580 --> 00:32:22,282
marine population, the marine mammals. So

491
00:32:22,642 --> 00:32:26,029
again, you do what you can. which is not perfect, you

492
00:32:26,069 --> 00:32:29,370
do what you can to help out, right? And do your part. If everyone did

493
00:32:29,410 --> 00:32:33,111
their part, then everything would be a lot better. So

494
00:32:33,131 --> 00:32:36,572
we're just facilitating that process, just providing a

495
00:32:36,612 --> 00:32:39,993
technical solution to give people the opportunities to

496
00:32:40,113 --> 00:32:43,614
generate more power from the sun, let the panels last

497
00:32:43,694 --> 00:32:49,295
longer so they're actually usable in five years' time, and give

498
00:32:49,315 --> 00:32:52,856
people the option to enjoy nature quieter.

499
00:32:53,835 --> 00:32:56,998
I love that. I think that's where it's at, right? It's

500
00:32:57,038 --> 00:33:00,501
just keeping nature quieter. I think that's

501
00:33:00,541 --> 00:33:04,826
what we always want, and I think it's a great way to enjoy

502
00:33:04,866 --> 00:33:08,549
life and enjoy the ocean. I

503
00:33:08,569 --> 00:33:11,852
did have a question. I forgot what my train of thought was, but I'll get

504
00:33:11,972 --> 00:33:15,562
it in a second. When

505
00:33:15,582 --> 00:33:18,744
you look at, oh, here's the question I had. You mentioned you

506
00:33:18,764 --> 00:33:22,326
had 15 pilot studies. How did you get people,

507
00:33:22,386 --> 00:33:25,848
is this on people's actual boats or are these like test

508
00:33:26,628 --> 00:33:29,970
Yeah, so we've really done no marketing right now. We have the website, we

509
00:33:30,010 --> 00:33:33,092
just got a new marketing manager, Tony, he's done an excellent job on the

510
00:33:33,132 --> 00:33:36,314
website and setting up interviews like this so we

511
00:33:36,334 --> 00:33:39,936
can get the word out there. But until we're actually in production,

512
00:33:40,456 --> 00:33:44,268
in sort of automated production, then We're

513
00:33:44,308 --> 00:33:47,429
not marketing too heavily right now because, again, we can't keep up with the

514
00:33:47,449 --> 00:33:51,091
demand. But the people that we

515
00:33:51,111 --> 00:33:54,772
have put the panels on have been really happy with them. And they've

516
00:33:54,812 --> 00:33:57,954
came to us and said, look, we've got a problem here. And a

517
00:33:58,194 --> 00:34:02,756
number of projects have actually been where we've been replacing original

518
00:34:02,796 --> 00:34:06,357
solar panels put down because they just weren't performing

519
00:34:06,978 --> 00:34:10,399
like they should be. We've done several projects where we've actually

520
00:34:10,439 --> 00:34:14,262
taken solar panels off and put down ours because

521
00:34:14,282 --> 00:34:18,645
the customer gets it. He wants solar. They

522
00:34:18,665 --> 00:34:21,828
want solar. They want to be independent. We did

523
00:34:22,108 --> 00:34:25,551
one project, the very first project we did, he sailed around

524
00:34:25,591 --> 00:34:28,773
Vancouver two and a half times, sorry, Vancouver Island two and a half

525
00:34:28,833 --> 00:34:32,136
times in the summer and didn't plug in

526
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:38,201
And granted, it is a diesel drive

527
00:34:38,281 --> 00:34:41,882
boat, and it is a sailboat. But again, it's the summer. You're

528
00:34:41,982 --> 00:34:45,283
using induction stove, using lights, using air

529
00:34:45,323 --> 00:34:48,784
conditioning. And the solar power generation meant

530
00:34:48,804 --> 00:34:52,265
that he didn't need to plug in once. And really,

531
00:34:52,345 --> 00:34:55,486
he was not in marinas anyway. He didn't have to go

532
00:34:55,526 --> 00:34:58,827
to a marina. So he could save a lot of costs there. He could anchor

533
00:34:58,967 --> 00:35:02,270
out. and hence he would just

534
00:35:02,770 --> 00:35:06,194
put the sails up and sail to the next destination. He's

535
00:35:06,254 --> 00:35:09,998
not hydrogenerating in that scenario, so

536
00:35:10,318 --> 00:35:14,102
all of the hotel loads have to come from solar. All your navigation systems,

537
00:35:14,162 --> 00:35:18,012
all your electronics have to come from solar power. And

538
00:35:18,052 --> 00:35:21,355
he was able to do that. So that was a great, great case study where

539
00:35:21,375 --> 00:35:24,958
he's like, yeah, I haven't needed to run the generator, run

540
00:35:24,998 --> 00:35:28,501
the engines for the purpose of charging the batteries. And

541
00:35:28,541 --> 00:35:31,964
I haven't needed to plug in for two and a half laps of Vancouver Island.

542
00:35:33,649 --> 00:35:37,992
So it was pretty good to hear. That's unreal

543
00:35:38,612 --> 00:35:41,974
to hear that story. It really makes a difference

544
00:35:42,034 --> 00:35:45,316
when you hear the case studies like that to say,

545
00:35:45,336 --> 00:35:48,878
I go around Vancouver Island, which is a big

546
00:35:48,978 --> 00:35:52,080
island, we're not talking about a small island here, and to be able to do it

547
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:55,582
two and a half times without having to go into a marina. That's

548
00:35:55,622 --> 00:35:58,924
incredible. That's absolutely to charge. That's

549
00:35:58,964 --> 00:36:02,026
phenomenal. Now, when you get the solar panels, it

550
00:36:04,267 --> 00:36:07,790
Yeah, so typical solar, you're going to go from the solar panel to a breaker, then

551
00:36:07,810 --> 00:36:11,453
to an MPPT, ideally to another breaker, do it safely, and

552
00:36:11,473 --> 00:36:14,935
then into the battery bank. So when people are designing a solar system,

553
00:36:15,055 --> 00:36:18,578
I always say work backwards from what you're going to use. So figure

554
00:36:18,618 --> 00:36:21,680
out what your loads are. Figure out, do you have air conditioning? Is that a

555
00:36:22,201 --> 00:36:25,363
110 system? What are the loads? How long do you want to run that for, typically? What

556
00:36:25,403 --> 00:36:30,005
is the power supply there? What's the demand? What's

557
00:36:30,045 --> 00:36:33,526
your fridge drawer? Do you have a water maker? What's

558
00:36:33,566 --> 00:36:36,747
that drawer? Do you have an electric heater? What's that drawer? And

559
00:36:36,767 --> 00:36:40,788
then so you write out all of the drawers, the electrical current drawers, and

560
00:36:40,808 --> 00:36:44,688
then you say, right, now, assuming there's no power available

561
00:36:44,728 --> 00:36:47,929
to me, how big do I need my batteries? How long do I want to

562
00:36:47,969 --> 00:36:51,270
run for with my battery bank? So now you've

563
00:36:51,290 --> 00:36:54,530
got your battery bank sized. And then you look at the solar and say,

564
00:36:54,591 --> 00:36:58,652
right, how long do I want to be away from

565
00:36:59,372 --> 00:37:02,813
plugging in to charge those batteries up?

566
00:37:03,493 --> 00:37:06,774
And hopefully your boat's big enough that you can put enough

567
00:37:06,814 --> 00:37:10,375
solar on is to satisfy the demand and use the battery

568
00:37:10,655 --> 00:37:14,276
more of a surge capacitor. So you've got nighttime

569
00:37:14,516 --> 00:37:18,547
use of power and charge up in the daytime. But

570
00:37:18,567 --> 00:37:22,128
yeah, I always tell people work backwards from what you're going to use to

571
00:37:23,069 --> 00:37:27,070
I think that's definitely

572
00:37:27,130 --> 00:37:30,312
common sense when you talk about it that way. Not a lot of people think

573
00:37:30,372 --> 00:37:33,853
that way, but now we start thinking about how much we draw on electricity. I

574
00:37:33,913 --> 00:37:37,054
love having the batteries and the batteries are going to get more efficient and better as we go

575
00:37:37,114 --> 00:37:40,876
along too. And I think that's going to help the

576
00:37:40,976 --> 00:37:44,717
industry both not only in cars, but also obviously in boats. and

577
00:37:44,757 --> 00:37:48,079
maybe you can do a five-time, double that around Vancouver Island.

578
00:37:48,099 --> 00:37:51,842
I think that would be pretty cool to hear that. This is

579
00:37:52,202 --> 00:37:55,644
incredible and it's going to be on the market once everything

580
00:37:55,744 --> 00:37:58,946
goes into production and you find a way or you

581
00:37:58,986 --> 00:38:02,869
found a way to do it. Now, it's just a matter of putting it through. That's going

582
00:38:02,889 --> 00:38:06,351
to be amazing. When do you hope that

583
00:38:06,371 --> 00:38:09,593
this is? This is obviously fingers crossed, knocking on wood. When

584
00:38:13,188 --> 00:38:16,649
Yeah, so we have orders right now, but we're still manually

585
00:38:16,669 --> 00:38:20,430
building the panels. So by April, May time in

586
00:38:20,770 --> 00:38:24,451
this year, we'll have the production up and running and

587
00:38:24,531 --> 00:38:28,153
we'll be really going to the market hard and really communicating what

588
00:38:28,173 --> 00:38:31,614
we've got, what are the benefits of it. We'll

589
00:38:31,654 --> 00:38:36,055
be at a lot of the boat shows. We're actually at the Seattle Boat Show from

590
00:38:36,075 --> 00:38:39,496
the 28th, well, Vancouver Boat Show from the 28th to the 30th

591
00:38:40,016 --> 00:38:43,322
in Intrepid Marines booth. So look out for us there. And then we're

592
00:38:43,342 --> 00:38:47,407
at the Seattle Boat Show. Open Waters has their own booth there at

593
00:38:47,447 --> 00:38:50,831
the Seattle Boat Show early February. Nice.

594
00:38:50,951 --> 00:38:54,217
So come by. come check us out and come have a chat about solar

595
00:38:55,798 --> 00:38:59,200
Absolutely. Now, if people like,

596
00:38:59,220 --> 00:39:03,583
I'll send them to the website if people want to get more information. And

597
00:39:03,603 --> 00:39:06,845
if people, and if they live, do they have to live on the West

598
00:39:06,905 --> 00:39:10,447
Coast or like of North America, or can they, like, you can do these anywhere?

599
00:39:10,788 --> 00:39:14,390
Yeah, we've shipped to Vietnam, to Turkey, to Finland.

600
00:39:14,890 --> 00:39:18,693
We've shipped, we will be shipping to New Zealand this month, the UK.

601
00:39:19,133 --> 00:39:22,507
So yeah, we're shipping globally already. That

602
00:39:22,527 --> 00:39:26,711
was important for us to sort of establish sort of

603
00:39:26,771 --> 00:39:30,114
the product in various areas. We are in British Columbia, it

604
00:39:30,134 --> 00:39:33,897
is cold, so we needed some exposures, some tropical, tropical

605
00:39:33,957 --> 00:39:37,640
heat too. So we've sold into- Especially the winter months. Yeah,

606
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:41,263
we've sold into Carriacou, down in the ABC Islands

607
00:39:41,343 --> 00:39:44,566
and also down into Florida, a couple of projects as

608
00:39:44,606 --> 00:39:47,868
well. Very nice. So yeah, these panels have seen some

609
00:39:48,849 --> 00:39:52,082
Yeah. Nice. How is the rest of

610
00:39:52,102 --> 00:39:55,927
the boating industry reacting to this type

611
00:39:58,539 --> 00:40:01,881
Well, it's like you said, we've really not gone to market in a big

612
00:40:01,941 --> 00:40:05,364
way yet. We are going to match trade in November this year. So

613
00:40:05,384 --> 00:40:09,907
that'll be sort of a big display of the technology. But

614
00:40:10,187 --> 00:40:13,829
like I said earlier, a lot of manufacturers are moving

615
00:40:13,869 --> 00:40:17,292
towards hybrid boats. So what that starts to mean is

616
00:40:17,332 --> 00:40:21,134
that solar now becomes a necessity than

617
00:40:21,174 --> 00:40:24,276
a nice to have. So when it's a nice to have, it's triple charging the

618
00:40:24,316 --> 00:40:27,659
batteries, it's keeping them charged. So when you go out, your battery's

619
00:40:27,679 --> 00:40:31,121
not dead. it's really nice to have, you really don't care,

620
00:40:31,141 --> 00:40:34,483
you're not keeping track of the solar, but when it's a necessity, when

621
00:40:34,523 --> 00:40:37,865
you really have the option to drive your boat

622
00:40:38,005 --> 00:40:41,867
on electrical power, not run the diesel engines, then

623
00:40:42,188 --> 00:40:45,389
you've really got to pay attention, and for that you need

624
00:40:45,430 --> 00:40:48,752
quality panels that are going to last. And then the other side

625
00:40:48,772 --> 00:40:52,314
of it is, if you're taking all this real estate up on a boat, real

626
00:40:52,334 --> 00:40:55,756
estate's precious, you want to use it, you want to be able to throw a yoga mat down,

627
00:40:56,596 --> 00:40:59,998
or have a dance party on it, as much

628
00:41:00,018 --> 00:41:03,399
as you can. They're fully adhered to the boat, they become part

629
00:41:03,419 --> 00:41:07,220
of the structure, and you can just use the surface like

630
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:11,161
any other surface, so you're not compromising on

631
00:41:17,493 --> 00:41:21,536
They do get hot. They're black surface. Yeah. So the nature of solar, it

632
00:41:21,596 --> 00:41:24,919
is a black surface. They do get warm. The best thing about

633
00:41:25,139 --> 00:41:28,281
black surfaces is if there's a breeze blowing across them, there's a

634
00:41:28,321 --> 00:41:31,744
natural cooling. Worst case is you've

635
00:41:31,764 --> 00:41:35,006
got full sun, zero breeze, and yeah,

636
00:41:39,474 --> 00:41:42,737
Yeah, so you won't wear deck shoes if you're walking on

637
00:41:42,777 --> 00:41:46,922
them when it's that warm. But typically, you're

638
00:41:46,962 --> 00:41:50,405
sailing, there's breeze, you're moving through the water, there's breeze, that's

639
00:41:50,425 --> 00:41:53,849
a cooling effect. And yeah, we end up being

640
00:41:57,882 --> 00:42:01,564
Amazing. Okay, cool. This is a lot of fun. So people

641
00:42:01,604 --> 00:42:04,946
can check you and I'm gonna if you send me those links I'm gonna put those in

642
00:42:04,966 --> 00:42:08,368
The show notes of where you're gonna be in those boat shows so that people can

643
00:42:08,749 --> 00:42:11,971
come and talk to you I think this is such a great technology. I

644
00:42:12,011 --> 00:42:16,073
can't wait for it to like start seeing it everywhere on boats you

645
00:42:16,093 --> 00:42:19,415
should you should start to market to some of the the

646
00:42:19,455 --> 00:42:23,697
government boats too, to get them on those field boats, the

647
00:42:23,797 --> 00:42:27,019
environmental people's field boats. The applications are

648
00:42:27,339 --> 00:42:30,601
We've started in the marine sector, the leisure marine, because really because of

649
00:42:30,641 --> 00:42:34,123
the demand. There's a want there to get off diesel,

650
00:42:34,143 --> 00:42:38,245
to get onto electric house loads, electric propulsion.

651
00:42:38,305 --> 00:42:41,747
There's a real want there. And that's going to follow suit down into

652
00:42:41,787 --> 00:42:45,288
industry as well. And when it comes to industry, it's all about money. It's

653
00:42:45,328 --> 00:42:48,710
all about health savings. You can displace diesel with

654
00:42:48,770 --> 00:42:51,932
electric you're just now talking about ROI you return on your

655
00:42:51,952 --> 00:42:56,094
investment and we can put solar panels on a 53 foot refrigerated

656
00:42:56,134 --> 00:42:59,555
trailer and give the owners of those reefer trailers about

657
00:42:59,575 --> 00:43:03,442
a three-year ROI. Yeah. Which again, so

658
00:43:03,682 --> 00:43:06,883
the leisure industry, nice to have people want it, but

659
00:43:06,923 --> 00:43:11,105
in the commercial space, it's always going to be about money. And

660
00:43:11,685 --> 00:43:14,966
we allow people to get off diesel and to get

661
00:43:15,046 --> 00:43:18,427
onto electric power

662
00:43:18,508 --> 00:43:21,749
when they have large real estate. The downside is,

663
00:43:22,129 --> 00:43:25,250
I don't think you'll ever see solar on a car. And if it is, it's a bit of

664
00:43:28,751 --> 00:43:32,514
You need a big surface area. big boats, catamarans,

665
00:43:32,534 --> 00:43:37,537
we're going to see solar on ships eventually. So

666
00:43:37,597 --> 00:43:41,681
BC Ferries, biggest ferry company in

667
00:43:41,721 --> 00:43:45,163
the world, or one of the biggest ferry companies in the world, they're starting

668
00:43:45,183 --> 00:43:49,207
to switch to electric. So again, we can take

669
00:43:49,587 --> 00:43:52,991
that energy and put it straight into those batteries. and

670
00:43:53,111 --> 00:43:57,414
use them for propulsion. Yeah, it's not going to be the solution, but

671
00:43:57,454 --> 00:44:00,637
it'll take the load off the grid as well when you then try to

672
00:44:01,966 --> 00:44:05,588
Absolutely, I love that. I love how, Simon, you took your

673
00:44:05,608 --> 00:44:09,070
two passions, you meld them together, like I'm gonna help find solutions for

674
00:44:09,110 --> 00:44:12,272
these. It's phenomenal what you've been

675
00:44:12,292 --> 00:44:15,514
able to do. You and your team have been able to do. I think

676
00:44:15,534 --> 00:44:19,937
it's great. I can't wait to see what's happening in like six

677
00:44:19,997 --> 00:44:23,339
months to a year. I'd love to have you back on and be able to talk more about

678
00:44:23,379 --> 00:44:27,021
what's been happening to get updates. But thank you so much for

679
00:44:27,061 --> 00:44:30,923
coming on the podcast and discussing this with us and telling your story because This

680
00:44:30,983 --> 00:44:35,186
is where I feel like we really need to push forward is highlight companies

681
00:44:35,226 --> 00:44:38,828
who are doing not only good for the ocean, but just good for people and their businesses

682
00:44:38,888 --> 00:44:42,250
and their money and getting it cheaper. And I think it's wonderful.

683
00:44:42,290 --> 00:44:45,512
So thank you so much, Simon, for joining me on

684
00:44:46,252 --> 00:44:49,534
It was a pleasure and it was great chatting. I love talking about something that's

685
00:44:49,554 --> 00:44:53,036
passionate. So it's good. Absolutely. Thank you so much. All

686
00:44:53,417 --> 00:44:57,302
Thank you, Simon, for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I

687
00:44:57,402 --> 00:45:00,566
love bringing this type of content to you, the

688
00:45:00,606 --> 00:45:03,690
audience, because it's something that we all need to hear. But we just don't I

689
00:45:03,710 --> 00:45:07,235
didn't know this was happening. I didn't know this was happening until the marketing manager,

690
00:45:07,275 --> 00:45:10,490
Tony, reached out to me. after I put out an episode on

691
00:45:10,530 --> 00:45:13,814
how China's putting solar panels in the ocean to get more

692
00:45:13,954 --> 00:45:17,218
energy for its people. That's pretty cool. And Tony's

693
00:45:17,238 --> 00:45:20,703
like, hey, you know what? You got to really look at what Simon's doing with open water solar.

694
00:45:21,083 --> 00:45:24,207
It's incredible. And it's going to change the boating industry in the

695
00:45:24,267 --> 00:45:27,640
future. And it definitely has. He talked about how he was

696
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:30,762
an engineer and how he came up in the oil and gas industry and then

697
00:45:30,802 --> 00:45:34,023
the pulp and paper industry and moving to different industries. And he's like, you know

698
00:45:34,043 --> 00:45:37,205
what? I wanna do something that's good. I wanna build a boat, put solar on

699
00:45:37,225 --> 00:45:40,406
it, make it completely self-sustainable so I don't have to charge, I don't have to plug in.

700
00:45:41,187 --> 00:45:45,129
And then he realized, well, the solar panels they have now, like currently, weren't

701
00:45:45,149 --> 00:45:48,210
that great. So he decided, hey, you know what? We're gonna make a

702
00:45:48,250 --> 00:45:51,512
better one. And he decided to do that. And he has done that and he is making it

703
00:45:51,992 --> 00:45:55,133
for everybody else. And I just think it's

704
00:45:55,173 --> 00:45:58,214
amazing. And so I'm going to put up the website so people can get a

705
00:45:58,654 --> 00:46:01,815
get in touch. I'm going to put up any social media sites so you can take a look at what they're

706
00:46:01,855 --> 00:46:05,056
up to. And I'm going to put those dates that he talked about and the boat

707
00:46:05,096 --> 00:46:08,497
shows in the show notes as well. And if you have

708
00:46:08,537 --> 00:46:12,238
any questions for me, you want to talk to me, hit me up on Instagram at

709
00:46:12,358 --> 00:46:15,579
how to protect the ocean that's at how to protect the ocean.

710
00:46:15,979 --> 00:46:19,942
And of course, you can see me on YouTube, on Spotify, and

711
00:46:20,102 --> 00:46:24,026
Apple Podcasts. All you have to do is just click subscribe on those platforms

712
00:46:24,106 --> 00:46:27,408
and hit the notification bell so you don't miss an episode. And

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00:46:27,428 --> 00:46:30,491
that's our episode for today. I am your host, Angelo, and

714
00:46:30,511 --> 00:46:33,934
thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have