Fuel Cells

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rsn48 said:
You say you are considering combining, if you are thinking Efoy (which isn't cheap) why not just go with it. Your boat is larger than mine and I'm going with the 210 Efoy along with my Fireflies. I have no plans to go solar. Combining shore power with alternator power and Efoy power, I will have all the juice I need. I do plan to use some higher draw electrical goodies but for a not too long time and when I went to their planing chart as to which unit to use, it said the 210 was most suited for inverters over 1000. If I didn't plan on using some items that will have a draw off my 2000 inverter, I would go for the middle model.

I have sat through enough crappy June and early July PNW and coastal BC weather to not really want to rely on solar.

My suggestion is go with Efoy and if it doesn't meet your needs then add solar. If you already have solar then, there you go, maybe add Efoy. One caveat, some of the reviews I have read, the person regretted getting the smallest unit and wish they had gone with the middle one.

I just read the OP and here in BC I can get Efoy fuel in many places from Vancouver to Victoria to Nanaimo (probably Duncan) to Comox to Campbell River to Port Hardy. I don't know about Lund or Powell River.
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The Panbo article mentioned in post #2 refers to Efoy amps as “premium amps.” They are more costly. There are still a good number of sunny days in the Puget Sound and up the Strait of Georgia to take advantage of solar — cheap amps. I don’t have enough room to deploy a lot of solar panels. But I can probably get one or two 100 watt panels up top. Then with a fuel cell generator I can augment the solar more cost effectively and reliably...I think.

I don’t have a generator and don’t really want one. My boat’s engines are gas fueled, so a diesel generator is somewhat problematic. I don’t want to pour fuel, diesel or gas. Solar is not a completely reliable option. But we don’t have big energy draws like bigger boats.

If I already owned a diesel generator it would be tough to justify a fuel cell generator given the cost. But since I don’t, I could justify the cost of premium amps if I’m not using a lot of them. And the quiet is a big big plus. So is the self contained nature of the Efoy fuel cells — no pouring fuel. I think I can store the fuel cells safely.

Now this Watt fuel cell system looks interesting too. Don’t need to make a move until spring, so maybe this would be the solution.
 
I am going to give you a few links in the sailing forum. Remember many of these souls are full timing on a sailboat so the Efoy amps are expensive, AND they live down south where the sun is out continually. So as you can guess solar is their choice. Friends I have up here in cloudy rainy land go through roughly one to two cannisters a year.

One user name you will see a lot is phantomracer, he was early in with his Efoy and so he responds frequently. His decision to go Efoy was aesthetics, he has a 1968 38 foot sloop which he keeps in immaculate condition. He doesn't like the looks of solar panels on sailboats and he wanted to retain the classic lines of his boat visually with it being marred my solar panels hither, thither and yon.

This is a thread I started there to stop the experts who have never used Efoy, have never really seen one, know anything about them, from expounding.

Efoy video (methanol fuel cell) - Cruisers & Sailing Forums

If you google Efoy user experience, the thread below is what will pop up the most. The problem is it is from 2012 so lots of experts with no knowledge, no experience. This thread contains some misinformation. And every thread on Efoy pretty much has some one come in and say Joe Schmuck is developing a fuel cell that will use some common cheap fuel. Note: since 2012 this has not become a reality. The one fuel cell using a form of salt water has not taken off for reasons I don't completely understand. But I do know when I called and sent emails, responses was less than ideal.

Phantomracer doesn't join in on the discussion till page two where he says he's thinking of installing one, which he eventually does.

What I will tell you is that I first started looking for a used Efoy unit on Vancouver Island, then expanded to Vancouver and BC, then all of Canada, then all of North America, then the world, looking for a used unit. I have been doing this for the past 8 months with zero success, so let that inform you as well. I suspect as one comes on the used market it is purchased almost immediately, as I will do if I ever see one.

E FOY Fuel Cell Generator - Cruisers & Sailing Forums
 
The Efoy puts out 100W. It'd be hard to rationalize that in most any use I can imagine. If you have room for 200 or 300W of solar, even in the PNW, you'd be much better off in my book. I had the sailboat up there for 4 seasons, 400W of solar and no genset. Refer, freezer, full instruments with repeaters, hydronic heat, etc. I don't think I ever ran the engine just to charge the batteries. The Watt fuel cell is an unknown on price, but still still it only does 500W. That'd be way more useful than 100W, but with solar it is cheap to install, free to run, and quite reliable.
 
There is a North Pacific for sale in BC that has a system installed. If we were ready to retire, I'd take a drive and look at that boat. But...


I must admit, I had no idea how it worked. I had to look it up and read up. I found Fisheries has the "fuel". Still seems like some kinda of voo-doo. But, I must say the idea intrigues me. Still pricey IMO but I guess if you have to replace a gen-set the cost/benefit may equal out.
 
Except, a small genset will produce 4.5KWH in an hour. It will take the Efoy 2 days to do the same.
 
Efoy doesn't compete against a genset, forget that argument. It would be the same as a genset is better than solar. Yes it is, if you like noise. I'm not running electric stoves and ovens, washers and dryers, a jacuzzi or ice maker. I'm running an electric smaller Norco fridge and seperate Norco freezer, both on the smaller side. I will be running a sound system from time to time on anchor.

I have propane for my stove/oven, a propane heater, a kerosene Espar heater and heating my hot water tank. Occasionally on the hook, I might run a hair blower for 5 minutes on medium setting. I might make toast with my 740 watt toaster, watch a movie(s), but no big demands. When I'm at the dock with power, I have a kicker electric heater to supplement the other heaters I have.

We have had some good years in terms of weather recently but I have lived in Vancouver since 1974 and I know we can also have some really miserable summers. Trust me, I lived through a number of summers where the sun didn't come out till mid-July. We usually have good Septembers but we can have some crappy ones as well; this past one was crappy. I also know it rains in October, November, January, February, March and April. I also know my refit guy installed solar on a customers boat only to get an angry phone call from Desolation Sound because his solar didn't work. Upon examination over the phone, it turns out the boater had experienced several days of rain.

Not matter how you slice the pie, it rains a lot up here. That last 4 years have been an exception. I'm convinced we will experience more crappy seasons.
 
rsn48 said:
We usually have good Septembers but we can have some crappy ones as well; this past one was crappy.
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I know, I was there. :eek:

I despise generator noise but I am seldom at anchor more than one day between runs. This summer 2000+ miles, longest I anchored was two days (twice), enforced by weather.

If you have low demands, and spend a lot of time anchored between engine runs, and have lowish battery capacity then I can start to see the Efoy. At $6K for the 210, it's still very pricey power compared to the same $$ spent on batteries and appropriate charging solutions.
 
rsn48 said:
Efoy doesn't compete against a genset, forget that argument. It would be the same as a genset is better than solar. Yes it is, if you like noise. I'm not running electric stoves and ovens, washers and dryers, a jacuzzi or ice maker. I'm running an electric smaller Norco fridge and seperate Norco freezer, both on the smaller side. I will be running a sound system from time to time on anchor.

I have propane for my stove/oven, a propane heater, a kerosene Espar heater and heating my hot water tank. Occasionally on the hook, I might run a hair blower for 5 minutes on medium setting. I might make toast with my 740 watt toaster, watch a movie(s), but no big demands. When I'm at the dock with power, I have a kicker electric heater to supplement the other heaters I have.

We have had some good years in terms of weather recently but I have lived in Vancouver since 1974 and I know we can also have some really miserable summers. Trust me, I lived through a number of summers where the sun didn't come out till mid-July. We usually have good Septembers but we can have some crappy ones as well; this past one was crappy. I also know it rains in October, November, January, February, March and April. I also know my refit guy installed solar on a customers boat only to get an angry phone call from Desolation Sound because his solar didn't work. Upon examination over the phone, it turns out the boater had experienced several days of rain.

Not matter how you slice the pie, it rains a lot up here. That last 4 years have been an exception. I'm convinced we will experience more crappy seasons.
Click to expand...

Well....you probably have a higher power demand than me. Where did you get your Efoy?

And I agree with you. The comparison should be with solar, not a genset.
 
We also have relatively small electrical power needs. The Watt fuel cell is interesting, especially around here in winter when nights are 16 hours long and gravel casts a long shadow at midday, making solar panels feeble even when it isn't raining/snowing.
 
MurrayM said:
We also have relatively small electrical power needs. The Watt fuel cell is interesting, especially around here in winter when nights are 16 hours long and gravel casts a long shadow at midday, making solar panels feeble even when it isn't raining/snowing.
Click to expand...

I watched Jeff Cote’s YouTube on the Efoy. Then I watched his solar video. Both are worth watching. I’d be interested in knowing what you think, Murray, if you watch the Efoy video. I’m beginning to think for simplicity’s sake I might just go with a fuel cell. Cote makes a compelling case, unless I”m missing something. And the fuel cells are available in the PNW.

After looking at the Watt fuel cell website there might be a significant difference in size and weight between the Watt and Efoy.
 
Haloo said:
I don’t have enough room to deploy a lot of solar panels. But I can probably get one or two 100 watt panels up top. Then with a fuel cell generator I can augment the solar more cost effectively and reliably...I think.
Click to expand...


I would suggest that with the limited space, you buy the highest wattage panels that you can get. They will be more expensive, but will make the solar installation that much more effective. I only had room for one panel on my boat (OK, I chose to only make room for one pane) so I went with a 365W panel. Not cheep but it puts out a lot of power during the summer here in the PNW.
 
If you have limited demands on your system and you are only on the hook for a day or three, you might want to use either lithium or fireflies as your house bank batteries and not use Efoy. I have four fireflies that can be taken down to 20% (some take them down even further and report no ill effects after a number of years of use). A firefly is 116 amps (12 volt) and four of them is 464 amp hours. At 20% you have 371 amp hours of usage. In normal golf cart batteries and the ilk, that would require 7.4 batteries taken down to 50%. Not sure how you get the .4 battery......lol.

My refit guy has the middle Efoy installed and was on the hook on a mooring ball for a week at the Newcastle marina area (Nanaimo area BC). He only used his dinghy during this week. Even after a week, he went through not much alcohol in his Efoy canister.

I'm including this paragraph for newbies to Efoy who google Efoy and this thread comes up. I explain Efoy two ways for non-boaters. First I say: "You know those batteries you can purchase for use with your phone if your phone should run down. Well Efoy is kind of like that battery. That battery can't power a washing machine or a microwave, but it can supplement the power your phone has. Efoy does the same thing, it can't power a microwave directly like being plugged into your home AC or a generator, but it can replace lost charge on your battery." Then I say: "Another way to look at it is pretend I can tow a barge behind my boat filled with batteries with a line going to my charging system on my boat. Those batteries will supplement the charge my boat house batteries have. You would need 18 golf cart batteries to equal one Efoy canister. Now instead of 18 golf cart batteries, just occurred to me if you use 6 volt golf cart batteries, you would need 36 batteries on the barge. Regardless, the Efoy unit is about the size of two large 4 slice toasters."
 
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rsn48 said:
If you have limited demands on your system and you are only on the hook for a day or three, you might want to use either lithium or fireflies as your house bank batteries and not use Efoy. I have four fireflies that can be taken down to 20% (some take them down even further and report no ill effects after a number of years of use). A firefly is 116 amps (12 volt) and four of them is 464 amp hours. At 20% you have 371 amp hours of usage. In normal golf cart batteries and the ilk, that would require 7.4 batteries taken down to 50%. Not sure how you get the .4 battery......lol.

My refit guy has the middle Efoy installed and was on the hook on a mooring ball for a week at the Newcastle marina area (Nanaimo area BC). He only used his dinghy during this week. Even after a week, he went through not much alcohol in his Efoy canister.

I'm including this paragraph for newbies to Efoy who google Efoy and this thread comes up. I explain Efoy two ways for non-boaters. First I say: "You know those batteries you can purchase for use with your phone if your phone should run down. Well Efoy is kind of like that battery. That battery can't power a washing machine or a microwave, but it can supplement the power your phone has. Efoy does the same thing, it can't power a microwave directly like being plugged into your home AC or a generator, but it can replace lost charge on your battery." Then I say: "Another way to look at it is pretend I can tow a barge behind my boat filled with batteries with a line going to my charging system on my boat. Those batteries will supplement the charge my boat house batteries have. You would need 18 golf cart batteries to equal one Efoy canister. Now instead of 18 golf cart batteries, just occurred to me if you use 6 volt golf cart batteries, you would need 36 batteries on the barge. Regardless, the Efoy unit is about the size of two large 4 slice toasters."
Click to expand...

Our goal is to spend quite a bit of time on the hook. We want to explore up the inside passage. It is possible that between Fireflys and the mid level Efoy that we might have a good combination.

Originally I assumed to boondock the way we would like we’d have to get solar. I looked at the Efoy a year and a half ago, but didn’t find a very good explanation of it’s capability at the time. I liked Cote’s video on the Efoy. It seems like a very viable option.
 
And I failed to add, 18 batteries on the barge is one canister of charge, two canisters is 36 batteries and three canisters is 54 batteries.

In our area, I really believe Efoy is the best way to go. But if you only cruise between May and September it might be overkill. But if you go off season, my money is on Efoy, not solar.

And besides, how cool is it to tell your passengers your boat has a fuel cell. Almost as good as a Tesla..... lol.
 
dhays said:
I would suggest that with the limited space, you buy the highest wattage panels that you can get. They will be more expensive, but will make the solar installation that much more effective. I only had room for one panel on my boat (OK, I chose to only make room for one pane) so I went with a 365W panel. Not cheep but it puts out a lot of power during the summer here in the PNW.
Click to expand...

Dave, do you also have a generator? Or does your solar panel provide all of the charging capacity you need May through October?
 
On many boats the huge battery capacity is mostly needed for refrigeration.

Perhaps a different reefer system would be more effective at boondocking.

The eutetic plate with engine drive works well, on our 90/90 with a very well insulated box we go 2 hours of engine time for a 4 day holding ice cream period.

On our Navy Utility conversion a std RV propane reefer runs about 3 weeks on a single 15lb bottle and feeds the 3 burner range and oven.
 
Not clear to me that fuel cells are really up to the job yet, but why use methanol when many (most?) boats already have propane. Here is a propane based fuel cell. The energy comparison vs diesel is a bit off!! It seems to assume that the alternator is ONLY generating electricity, not powering the vessel/vehicle.
https://www.wattfuelcell.com/portable-power/watt-imperium/
 
Haloo
Do you have diesel heat/stove combo on the vessel? If so, your very nice Kingfisher should be ready to go with a few Fireflys. Especially if you can charge your batteries adequately during a 4+ hour cruise. Getting those on engine alternators to perform to max (or install higher output) seems more prudent than messing around with fuel cells.

You will have little difficulty finding marinas to plug into if you so choose. Plus these marinas are where the interesting towns and attractions are located. At 25 knots you have lots of options. Twin 300s?
 
sunchaser said:
Haloo
Do you have diesel heat/stove combo on the vessel? If so, your very nice Kingfisher should be ready to go with a few Fireflys. Especially if you can charge your batteries adequately during a 4+ hour cruise. Getting those on engine alternators to perform to max (or install higher output) seems more prudent than messing around with fuel cells.

You will have little difficulty finding marinas to plug into if you so choose. Plus these marinas are where the interesting towns and attractions are located. At 25 knots you have lots of options. Twin 300s?
Click to expand...

We have a two burner alcohol stove, which works fine for us. We want to spend a lot of time exploring in remote areas, which will mean that we will be on the hook a lot and deploying our sea kayaks. Our major power consumption is our refrigerator, and on cold days the blower for our diesel heater. All of our lighting is LED.

Yes, we have twin 300hp engines. Each has an 85amp alternator. I’m not sure how often we will be under power for 4 hours. We currently have a slip in Olympia, WA. It only takes us about 2 hours to get to Seattle at a relaxed pace— about 53 miles. While I’ve rebuilt auto engines, replaced clutches, and done mechanical work on my motorcycles over the years, I know very little about electrical systems. I need to learn more about how much charging our batteries will get over what period of time with our alternators.

Our plan is to boat April through October in the Puget Sound and Inside Passage. Lots of cloudy days. The engines are gas powered and I don’t want to carry diesel for a generator. Don’t want the weight, hassle, or noise of a generator either.

The thing that makes an Efoy seem like a reasonable option for us is that we can take it out of our boat and use it in our camper. We like to boondock in our camper, and do a fair amount of camping in early spring and late fall when it isn’t always sunny. We have solar on our camper, but the Efoy and an inverter would give us the ability to camp in the boonies for an extended period of time, and with our on-board inverter, charge up our e-mountain bikes. And when we do stop in an organized campground, we won’t have to pay for electricity or other hookups — we have a composting toilet on our boat and in our camper.

So, unless I’m really missing something, spreading the cost of an Efoy over two vehicles doesn’t seem unreasonable.
 
FF said:
If you anchor out in areas where there are not a ton of other boats , a modern wind generator might be ideal.

The new units have very well designed blades that do not make the constant noise of the units a few generations earlier..

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=boat+wind+generator+reviews


https://www.sailmagazine.com/diy/know-how-wind-generators
Click to expand...

Haha...if I anchor out in the windiest spot in the neighborhood I will pretty much guarantee there won't be any other boats around.

I wonder if wind generators would be more effective with Sharrow props on them. :)
 
The rumor I have heard is, the wind turbines seem to generate some sort of ambient, irritating sound so, don't mount it on the railing over your aft stateroom.
Any confirmation???
 
OldDan1943 said:
The rumor I have heard is, the wind turbines seem to generate some sort of ambient, irritating sound so, don't mount it on the railing over your aft stateroom.
Any confirmation???
Click to expand...

A wind generator is not really an option for us. We don’t have enough room to store one while under way. Our boat does about 27 knots at optimal cruising speed (for fuel efficiency), so I wouldn’t want to leave one mounted either.

I think if we had a Firefly battery bank, and an Efoy for those occasions we needed a power hit we would be fine. We don’t have a lot of electrical power needs.

Once I figured out that I could also use the Efoy in our camper for 4 season camping, the initial cost of the Efoy seemed a lot more palatable.
 
I can buy a lot of batteries for the installation price of the Efoy system.
 
OldDan1943 said:
I can buy a lot of batteries for the installation price of the Efoy system.
Click to expand...

How many batteries do you have room for? Do you also have a generator, or room for one?
 
I must be missing the point here. Three or more thousand dollars for very little power? Why not buy 3 or 4 extra nice big deep cycle batteries and if you don't use them for a few months, stick them on a charger once in a while.

Coupled to an inverter and only used if your genny fails and your engine alternator isn't doing it's job why spend this big dollars?

pete
 
OldDan1943 said:
4X4D batteries and a generator.
Click to expand...

Nice!

Our boat is a lot smaller than yours. If I weren’t so freaked out about pouring fuel on the boat maybe we’d get a small generator. But we don’t have diesel engines, and I don’t want to store a gas can on the boat. If we were in Florida instead of the PNW we’d rely on solar. Alas....
 
Pete Meisinger said:
I must be missing the point here. Three or more thousand dollars for very little power? Why not buy 3 or 4 extra nice big deep cycle batteries and if you don't use them for a few months, stick them on a charger once in a while.

Coupled to an inverter and only used if your genny fails and your engine alternator isn't doing it's job why spend this big dollars?

pete
Click to expand...

We don’t have a generator or an inverter.
 
Haloo said:
Nice!

Our boat is a lot smaller than yours. If I weren’t so freaked out about pouring fuel on the boat maybe we’d get a small generator. But we don’t have diesel engines, and I don’t want to store a gas can on the boat. If we were in Florida instead of the PNW we’d rely on solar. Alas....
Click to expand...

One of the 4D AGM is a start battery. I only have room for 2 solar panels, 135 each. My inverter is 1800, my gen is 6KW. I'm happy and the next owner will not get over powered by the changes and upgrades
 
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