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Solar Panels on Boats Is The Future · How To Protect The Ocean

0:00
The wonderful part about being on the ocean is to really enjoy nature
0:03
in its realm. To hear the quiet, to hear the birds
0:07
chirping in the background. Maybe, if you're lucky, a whale coming
0:11
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
0:19
being on the ocean. It's one thing that I, as a biologist, marine
0:22
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
0:59
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
1:19
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
1:34
Protect the Ocean podcast. Hey
1:40
everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I
1:43
am your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the
1:46
ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better
1:50
ocean by taking action. And on today's episode, like
1:53
I said, we have Simon Angus, who is the CEO of
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Open Water Solar, a company that makes flexible, durable
2:01
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
2:15
industry is moving forward. In the interview, Simon highlights how
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the industry is really moving towards being more electric,
2:23
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
2:35
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
2:56
from Open Water Solar. Enjoy, and I will talk to you after. Hey,
2:59
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
3:21
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
4:02
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?
9:54
Like, Oh, absolutely. I have a goal which I want to execute
9:58
on very quickly in the next couple of years is that's the ski
10:04
That's possible. That's very possible. We can do that. So. Oh,
10:09
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.
10:16
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
10:23
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,
13:27
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
13:44
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
14:25
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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solar sucked that bad that we had to go sailing to hydrogenerate to
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charge the batteries. And that's where we
14:43
were like, OK, we've got to fix this solar problem. This is a big problem. And
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it's not just for my boat that I designed that we
14:51
had the problem. But when we set out and built
14:55
this catamaran, we knew nothing about solar. And
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it was only through understanding and learning
15:03
about solar that we realized that the current solutions
15:07
really weren't that good. There's basically the regular solar
15:11
panels that you put on your house, which I wasn't going to put on a
15:16
Aluminum frame, really heavy solar panels. Or
15:20
there's the leisure type, the semi-flex ones. And what we realized with those is
15:23
they have three fundamental flaws. The first one being real
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estate utilization. They come in standard panels, standard
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sort of rectangles. And you can only fit so many on the roof of the boat. And
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then you end up with a lot of wasted space. The third problem with
15:37
them is they suffer micro cracks horrendously. They're
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just two pieces of plastic encapsulated in the cell, and
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you look at them wrong and they crack. You carry them wrong on the install, they
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crack. And so having all the cells in series means
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that if one cell sort of starts to degrade and the current
15:56
drops, then the whole panel's affected. And if multiple panels are connected
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Um, so, so, and then there's the shading issue. It's a sailboat. We've got a rig.
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We've got a boom. We've got a mask. We got lots of other Reagan and lots of shading going
16:09
on. So. Again, having shaded solar cells
16:14
really cuts down the performance. So we had these problems and
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we set out to solve them. If we were to, as
16:21
a sort of an objective for originally for our boat, so
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we could have a truly sustainable sort of sailboat,
16:28
which we didn't need to plug in or run a generator. But then we realized it was
16:31
more than that. And we could really sort of, we
16:36
could really facilitate the, the
16:39
electrification of the marine and other industries if we were
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able to achieve what we set out
16:47
The goal was to have a standalone solar panel or
16:51
a number of solar panels on a boat. I assume the
16:54
number of solar panels depend on the size of the boat to get the boat
16:58
going. that didn't need to plug in when you're on
17:01
the shore. And so that's why you have the solar panel. So you want an electric
17:04
boat that didn't need to plug in, because there are some boats that you need to plug in.
17:08
This one, you don't need to plug in. You just get it from the ocean. That's
17:13
wonderful. That sounds like the ideal place. It's supposed to
17:16
be light. It's supposed to be semi-flexible, as you mentioned, so
17:20
it can fit like a boat contour. It'll look like it's part of the boat. That's
17:24
great. doesn't sound like there are many of those available. And
17:27
so, and you obviously the ones that are have some problems with it.
17:31
So how does, like, how does that go? Like, obviously,
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it's a challenge for you as an engineer, you're like, I'm going to make this work. Like,
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where do you say, where's my like, when when do you say, like, this
17:42
is my breaking point of it, if it works, or it doesn't work? Or how
17:49
Um, basically, it's a it's a commitment thing. So we found 500 ways
17:53
on not to build our product. We
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knew we had to encapsulate the solar cells in
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fiberglass. The goal there was to make it
18:04
strong, lightweight, durable. We had to
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create incredibly clear fiberglass by
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putting an incredibly impermeable object right
18:16
in the middle of the fiberglass laminate. And that was the challenge. And
18:20
it had to be completely optically clear. So
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we didn't get any degradation in performance of the cells. And
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so that's what we've done is this is just a very small sample of that panel.
18:32
As you can see, this is a non-slip version. You can walk on them.
18:37
And it just looks like a black panel. It's a black piece of fiberglass with
18:45
No, it doesn't. And it's that thin. So it's 1.3 millimeters thick. Wow.
18:49
Incredibly lightweight. Yeah. It's flexible. Yeah.
18:53
And you can beat it. And you
18:57
have no micro-cracking because all of that stress and
19:01
force is taken in by the fiberglass instead of
19:05
the plastic. So there's no elongation for the cell to crack into.
19:14
Again, about 500 ways on not to do it. And it
19:17
took quite a while, about 18 months of R&D to
19:21
figure out the secret sauce and
19:24
the magic to make it happen. And
19:28
then, obviously, we were building them manually, which isn't
19:31
cost effective in Canada. The labor costs are far too
19:34
high. So now we're in the process of automating that
19:38
entire production. So we can manufacture in
19:42
Canada. That was, again, another goal of building the boat and the goal
19:45
of the company was we can manufacture in Canada and we can
19:52
Gotcha. So now when did you start this company? Was it
19:56
2019 technically, like as building the boat, but then pivoting
20:01
Yeah. So 2019, we started, we started a little bit before that. We built a
20:04
canoe and an ACAT, a foiling ACAT. Um,
20:08
and then just sort of learn about composites, learn about sort of boat
20:11
design, boat building. And then yeah, 2019 we went straight
20:15
in and started the, the, the, started to build the molds for
20:21
Got you. And, and now you're at a point now, where
20:24
are you at? Are you at a point where you can mass produce these and you can actually
20:29
Yeah. So we have about 15 or so pilot projects out there on the
20:32
water, uh, all sort of different stages of product development.
20:36
Uh, but we're now at a spot where we've, uh, about three months ago, we
20:39
nailed down the exact sort of recipe, the process. Uh,
20:43
and now we're looking to get into full production. Uh, our,
20:47
our order back is about four or five months long at our current production
20:51
rates. but we're looking to increase production over
20:54
the next couple of months and then really get out there to the market and
20:59
allow people to put as much solar as they can and
21:03
basically on their boats to again facilitate the electrification
21:07
of the marine and transportation sectors. And that's where
21:10
we're heading is anything that moves, anything that's in harsh environments, our
21:16
Now it's really funny because you make that last little paragraph that
21:20
you just told me there, that answer, you made it sound like it was like nothing. That's
21:23
pretty exciting. 15 pilot projects and he's found like
21:26
the actual formula now. You know what to make. That's
21:30
super exciting to see. And now you're saying like,
21:33
look, we're going to start putting it out so they can get as many. uh,
21:37
solar panels on it. So these are not necessarily going to be solar panels on
21:41
new boats. You can add them to your own existing boat.
21:45
Yeah. So you can basically, we can build any size, any shape. Um,
21:49
so you can add them to, uh, existing boats. There'll be
21:52
a new boats. Um, uh, so yeah,
21:56
you, you basically build a template, take a picture of the template and we
21:59
can build the solar panel to suit. So we can
22:02
curve to the curve to the shape of the boats and really maximize
22:06
that real estate utilization because solar is not perfect.
22:10
It's only right now 24, 25% efficient in terms
22:13
of the energy you're getting from the sun. So the conversion rates are not great.
22:17
So by the time you take into account the little gaps
22:21
between the solar cells, we're about 250 watts per meter squared.
22:25
And that's not a lot. So you really want to utilize that
22:29
real estate as much as you can. And for a boat, we've actually
22:33
came up with a protocol floating solar. So it's fundamentally
22:37
an inflatable paddleboard type design, which accordions out
22:41
and you throw it behind your boat. And it's a 300 watt panel and it
22:44
just sits there without any shade and just sits there and generates
22:47
power. That's amazing. So again, that's solving
22:51
the real estate utilization problem for mostly for monohulls.
23:12
cloudy outside, you're not going to be able to go anywhere. Can you
23:15
talk just a little bit about some of the myths of solar and
23:19
are they true or not, or some of the things that people say about solar that you may
23:22
have heard, like are they true, are they not, what's true, what's not, what
23:25
do people have to look at when they start to think about using solar on
23:31
Yeah, so all the myths or whatever people hear
23:34
are true because they come up with them, And it's
23:37
a direct experience of people. One of the things that we realized is
23:41
that designing a solar system for a boat actually isn't easy. How
23:46
the panels are wired together, the voltage that
23:51
you use, the battery voltage, the
23:55
bypassed out orientation, All of those things
23:59
have to come into account, even the direction that the
24:02
solar panel faces. If you have one solar panel on
24:05
one surface and it faces a slightly different direction to the
24:08
sun than the other surface, then it's the one that has
24:12
the least sun angle that is going to
24:16
drive the performance of the panel. Same with shading as
24:19
well with bypass diodes. If you orientate the panel the wrong direction and
24:23
you cast a shadow over the panel, well, you could either eliminate
24:27
just one string or you can eliminate the entire panel from the circuit. So,
24:31
there's a lot to think about when we do do a design for
24:35
a boat, especially a sailboat. On a
24:38
boat, obviously, there's less shading, less issues, but
24:42
again, still got to be thoughtful in terms of voltages, current, whether
24:46
it's going to be series or parallel, what solar controls to use.
24:50
So, we don't recommend just people go in to put a panel
24:53
on the boat and say, now I've got solar, because they won't.
24:59
They won't have good performance. So you really got
25:02
to think about it, how the panels are orientated, how they're strung together, how
25:06
the bypass diodes are orientated. All
25:10
those things have got to be thought about when you start to design your
25:15
Yeah, it's really interesting to think about that. And then a lot of boat,
25:18
people who have boats, they're really in tune with their boats. They know what's
25:22
needed and what's not. So I feel like having, this is a good market
25:26
to work with because looking at
25:29
what they do with their boat, how often they service their boat, and
25:34
they get to know it quite well, it'd be easy to work with them. So I guess
25:37
a lot of these jobs would be almost like a custom, sort
25:42
of job right because you don't know because everybody's going to be different in terms of how many
25:48
Exactly so we do have standard products that you can just go
25:51
and put on the boat but again not that successful in terms of how much
25:54
power you're going to generate but then when it comes to sort
25:58
of more of the electrification of the drive system and
26:01
you've become more reliant on solar now rather than
26:04
a nice to have It's got to be designed right, so we
26:07
get into doing custom designs, working
26:12
around hatches. rigging lines, travelers,
26:17
and things like that. And so we can maximize the
26:20
amount of real estate and then minimize the amount of downtime from
26:26
Yeah, well, interesting. What about in terms
26:29
of efficiency, like clouds? Obviously, you're up in Canada. It
26:33
gets cloudy at times. Are people going
26:41
Yeah, it's definitely an issue. Solar relies on the sun. When
26:45
it's bright out, in terms of light cloud, you can
26:48
get up to 25% out of a solar panel. Obviously, a
26:52
really thick, cloudy day, maybe you're down to 5%. But
26:56
at the end of the day, most of us are using our boats in the summer when
27:00
it's nice out. And then we've got lots of solar, right?
27:06
After they ski and
27:13
But yeah, it's definitely a thing, but it's like anything with sailing. You, um,
27:18
you have to think about where you're going, what the targets are, what the currents are,
27:21
what the wind's doing. Um, and it's just another thing
27:24
to think about. What's my power consumption. If, if you're going to commit
27:28
to an electric boat, then you add one other
27:31
tactic that you've got to deal with, right. In terms of like with
27:34
my boat, for example, um, it'll do nine knots under
27:40
for about 10 minutes, and then the battery's dead. Or
27:44
typically if we're running both 12 kilowatt drives,
27:48
full belt, yeah, you've only got a few, maybe 15 minutes.
27:51
So that means I can't go through some of the narrows in
27:55
the wrong tide, where maybe you can with a diesel, because you
27:59
don't have the energy density. So again, it's just another thing to
28:02
think about as a sailor when you go out. You've
28:08
Yeah, and I think it's interesting, too, because I have an
28:12
EV, like a car, and I find that I have to
28:15
do just a little extra planning when I go out to make sure, like if I'm going
28:18
on a long trip, I've got to make sure that I can find the right, you
28:21
know, where all the chargers are so that I can do it in line and I can continue
28:25
on with myself. You don't want to run out of, just like you don't want to run out of gas, you
28:28
don't want to run out of electricity. Now, of
28:31
course, I have the opportunity to pull over and go to a charger and
28:35
charge over as someone with a gas-powered vehicle can go over and
28:39
get some gas. That's not always the case in the ocean, depending on
28:43
where you're going and areas. You probably want to go to a remote
28:46
place and enjoy yourself and do some fishing or swimming
28:50
or whatever that might be. We're just sailing around. So
28:54
you're not always around. So you have to just plan a little bit just to make sure
28:57
that you can have it now. So when people are when you talk about
29:00
having an electric boat, like a solar boat like this, are
29:03
people using part solar and part like
29:09
Yeah, so we've actually, there's been a big, certainly in
29:12
the new boat world, there's a lot of hybrid boats being built
29:16
right now. Whereas we've already done
29:19
two projects for hybrid boats where it's a diesel electric.
29:24
And that's very efficient when it comes to generating power. You're
29:27
running the diesel engine at a constant speed. It's tuned for the generator. And
29:32
then when you're doing close marina sort of maneuvers, then
29:35
you're just in with the electric drive. We're
29:40
doing an 80-foot catamaran right now, where
29:44
we're doing 24 kilowatts of solar. It's an 80-foot expedition
29:47
yacht, and we'll be able to handle sort of all of the hotel loads
29:51
with the solar. So he can sit at an anchorage and
29:55
not have to run a diesel generator. If he wants to cross the
29:58
Atlantic, yeah, he's going to have to run his engines. Batteries aren't
30:02
that good right now. They're going to get better, but
30:06
they're not the solution, right? Yeah. So there is compromises
30:16
Yeah, and this is just the beginning of it, right? It's just like
30:20
EVs in the car industry. they're going to get better and
30:23
better as you go along. You are really just starting. As
30:27
you said, some of the panels that you tried before you started this venture
30:31
weren't the greatest and they chipped a lot and they broke a lot. Now, you're getting
30:35
a little bit more durable, you're getting a little bit more length out of it,
30:38
a little bit more usability. Then I'm sure over time that
30:42
iteration is going to get even longer and longer as you go
30:45
through and as you discover more and we do more. I find a lot of people right
30:49
now, they expect the best right off the bat. And
30:52
that's not how it works. Even the car when it was first invented, it was
30:55
never just the best, like the gas powered
30:59
car. It was never just like from what we get now to
31:02
a Porsche. You know what I mean? It wasn't like that. And it
31:06
was slow. And there was a lot of problems with it. And I'm sure people didn't love them
31:09
right off the bat. This, I love, I love the fact that you can
31:12
do this because even if you run it side by side with a hybrid and
31:16
use it with a hybrid engine, at least you're powering it. You're using less noise,
31:19
uh, on, on the, on the water. You're enjoying it
31:23
a lot more because you can, you don't have to have the noise that
31:27
you get to really hear the ocean. When
31:30
you're on the water and you want to power through
31:33
something, you can really hear nature. You can really hear what's going on,
31:37
maybe a whale or two in that time, you never know. You
31:40
live in a very productive area, so I think it'd be cool to see
31:43
that. But I think that's what is the
31:47
real benefit from an ocean perspective is that noise. On
31:51
your website, you actually talk about that a little bit, about not creating
31:55
noise to protect oceans. Can
31:59
Yeah, so like anything, there's like within
32:03
BC, we've got BC ferries, they're obviously making huge amounts of noise. Yeah.
32:08
But you do what you can, right? And obviously, the studies out there
32:11
which have said sort of marine use by humans
32:15
affects the
32:18
marine population, the marine mammals. So
32:22
again, you do what you can. which is not perfect, you
32:26
do what you can to help out, right? And do your part. If everyone did
32:29
their part, then everything would be a lot better. So
32:33
we're just facilitating that process, just providing a
32:36
technical solution to give people the opportunities to
32:40
generate more power from the sun, let the panels last
32:43
longer so they're actually usable in five years' time, and give
32:49
people the option to enjoy nature quieter.
32:53
I love that. I think that's where it's at, right? It's
32:57
just keeping nature quieter. I think that's
33:00
what we always want, and I think it's a great way to enjoy
33:04
life and enjoy the ocean. I
33:08
did have a question. I forgot what my train of thought was, but I'll get
33:11
it in a second. When
33:15
you look at, oh, here's the question I had. You mentioned you
33:18
had 15 pilot studies. How did you get people,
33:22
is this on people's actual boats or are these like test
33:26
Yeah, so we've really done no marketing right now. We have the website, we
33:30
just got a new marketing manager, Tony, he's done an excellent job on the
33:33
website and setting up interviews like this so we
33:36
can get the word out there. But until we're actually in production,
33:40
in sort of automated production, then We're
33:44
not marketing too heavily right now because, again, we can't keep up with the
33:47
demand. But the people that we
33:51
have put the panels on have been really happy with them. And they've
33:54
came to us and said, look, we've got a problem here. And a
33:58
number of projects have actually been where we've been replacing original
34:02
solar panels put down because they just weren't performing
34:06
like they should be. We've done several projects where we've actually
34:10
taken solar panels off and put down ours because
34:14
the customer gets it. He wants solar. They
34:18
want solar. They want to be independent. We did
34:22
one project, the very first project we did, he sailed around
34:25
Vancouver two and a half times, sorry, Vancouver Island two and a half
34:28
times in the summer and didn't plug in
34:34
And granted, it is a diesel drive
34:38
boat, and it is a sailboat. But again, it's the summer. You're
34:41
using induction stove, using lights, using air
34:45
conditioning. And the solar power generation meant
34:48
that he didn't need to plug in once. And really,
34:52
he was not in marinas anyway. He didn't have to go
34:55
to a marina. So he could save a lot of costs there. He could anchor
34:58
out. and hence he would just
35:02
put the sails up and sail to the next destination. He's
35:06
not hydrogenerating in that scenario, so
35:10
all of the hotel loads have to come from solar. All your navigation systems,
35:14
all your electronics have to come from solar power. And
35:18
he was able to do that. So that was a great, great case study where
35:21
he's like, yeah, I haven't needed to run the generator, run
35:24
the engines for the purpose of charging the batteries. And
35:28
I haven't needed to plug in for two and a half laps of Vancouver Island.
35:33
So it was pretty good to hear. That's unreal
35:38
to hear that story. It really makes a difference
35:42
when you hear the case studies like that to say,
35:45
I go around Vancouver Island, which is a big
35:48
island, we're not talking about a small island here, and to be able to do it
35:52
two and a half times without having to go into a marina. That's
35:55
incredible. That's absolutely to charge. That's
35:58
phenomenal. Now, when you get the solar panels, it
36:04
Yeah, so typical solar, you're going to go from the solar panel to a breaker, then
36:07
to an MPPT, ideally to another breaker, do it safely, and
36:11
then into the battery bank. So when people are designing a solar system,
36:15
I always say work backwards from what you're going to use. So figure
36:18
out what your loads are. Figure out, do you have air conditioning? Is that a
36:22
110 system? What are the loads? How long do you want to run that for, typically? What
36:25
is the power supply there? What's the demand? What's
36:30
your fridge drawer? Do you have a water maker? What's
36:33
that drawer? Do you have an electric heater? What's that drawer? And
36:36
then so you write out all of the drawers, the electrical current drawers, and
36:40
then you say, right, now, assuming there's no power available
36:44
to me, how big do I need my batteries? How long do I want to
36:47
run for with my battery bank? So now you've
36:51
got your battery bank sized. And then you look at the solar and say,
36:54
right, how long do I want to be away from
36:59
plugging in to charge those batteries up?
37:03
And hopefully your boat's big enough that you can put enough
37:06
solar on is to satisfy the demand and use the battery
37:10
more of a surge capacitor. So you've got nighttime
37:14
use of power and charge up in the daytime. But
37:18
yeah, I always tell people work backwards from what you're going to use to
37:23
I think that's definitely
37:27
common sense when you talk about it that way. Not a lot of people think
37:30
that way, but now we start thinking about how much we draw on electricity. I
37:33
love having the batteries and the batteries are going to get more efficient and better as we go
37:37
along too. And I think that's going to help the
37:40
industry both not only in cars, but also obviously in boats. and
37:44
maybe you can do a five-time, double that around Vancouver Island.
37:48
I think that would be pretty cool to hear that. This is
37:52
incredible and it's going to be on the market once everything
37:55
goes into production and you find a way or you
37:58
found a way to do it. Now, it's just a matter of putting it through. That's going
38:02
to be amazing. When do you hope that
38:06
this is? This is obviously fingers crossed, knocking on wood. When
38:13
Yeah, so we have orders right now, but we're still manually
38:16
building the panels. So by April, May time in
38:20
this year, we'll have the production up and running and
38:24
we'll be really going to the market hard and really communicating what
38:28
we've got, what are the benefits of it. We'll
38:31
be at a lot of the boat shows. We're actually at the Seattle Boat Show from
38:36
the 28th, well, Vancouver Boat Show from the 28th to the 30th
38:40
in Intrepid Marines booth. So look out for us there. And then we're
38:43
at the Seattle Boat Show. Open Waters has their own booth there at
38:47
the Seattle Boat Show early February. Nice.
38:50
So come by. come check us out and come have a chat about solar
38:55
Absolutely. Now, if people like,
38:59
I'll send them to the website if people want to get more information. And
39:03
if people, and if they live, do they have to live on the West
39:06
Coast or like of North America, or can they, like, you can do these anywhere?
39:10
Yeah, we've shipped to Vietnam, to Turkey, to Finland.
39:14
We've shipped, we will be shipping to New Zealand this month, the UK.
39:19
So yeah, we're shipping globally already. That
39:22
was important for us to sort of establish sort of
39:26
the product in various areas. We are in British Columbia, it
39:30
is cold, so we needed some exposures, some tropical, tropical
39:33
heat too. So we've sold into- Especially the winter months. Yeah,
39:37
we've sold into Carriacou, down in the ABC Islands
39:41
and also down into Florida, a couple of projects as
39:44
well. Very nice. So yeah, these panels have seen some
39:48
Yeah. Nice. How is the rest of
39:52
the boating industry reacting to this type
39:58
Well, it's like you said, we've really not gone to market in a big
40:01
way yet. We are going to match trade in November this year. So
40:05
that'll be sort of a big display of the technology. But
40:10
like I said earlier, a lot of manufacturers are moving
40:13
towards hybrid boats. So what that starts to mean is
40:17
that solar now becomes a necessity than
40:21
a nice to have. So when it's a nice to have, it's triple charging the
40:24
batteries, it's keeping them charged. So when you go out, your battery's
40:27
not dead. it's really nice to have, you really don't care,
40:31
you're not keeping track of the solar, but when it's a necessity, when
40:34
you really have the option to drive your boat
40:38
on electrical power, not run the diesel engines, then
40:42
you've really got to pay attention, and for that you need
40:45
quality panels that are going to last. And then the other side
40:48
of it is, if you're taking all this real estate up on a boat, real
40:52
estate's precious, you want to use it, you want to be able to throw a yoga mat down,
40:56
or have a dance party on it, as much
41:00
as you can. They're fully adhered to the boat, they become part
41:03
of the structure, and you can just use the surface like
41:07
any other surface, so you're not compromising on
41:17
They do get hot. They're black surface. Yeah. So the nature of solar, it
41:21
is a black surface. They do get warm. The best thing about
41:25
black surfaces is if there's a breeze blowing across them, there's a
41:28
natural cooling. Worst case is you've
41:31
got full sun, zero breeze, and yeah,
41:39
Yeah, so you won't wear deck shoes if you're walking on
41:42
them when it's that warm. But typically, you're
41:46
sailing, there's breeze, you're moving through the water, there's breeze, that's
41:50
a cooling effect. And yeah, we end up being
41:57
Amazing. Okay, cool. This is a lot of fun. So people
42:01
can check you and I'm gonna if you send me those links I'm gonna put those in
42:04
The show notes of where you're gonna be in those boat shows so that people can
42:08
come and talk to you I think this is such a great technology. I
42:12
can't wait for it to like start seeing it everywhere on boats you
42:16
should you should start to market to some of the the
42:19
government boats too, to get them on those field boats, the
42:23
environmental people's field boats. The applications are
42:27
We've started in the marine sector, the leisure marine, because really because of
42:30
the demand. There's a want there to get off diesel,
42:34
to get onto electric house loads, electric propulsion.
42:38
There's a real want there. And that's going to follow suit down into
42:41
industry as well. And when it comes to industry, it's all about money. It's
42:45
all about health savings. You can displace diesel with
42:48
electric you're just now talking about ROI you return on your
42:51
investment and we can put solar panels on a 53 foot refrigerated
42:56
trailer and give the owners of those reefer trailers about
42:59
a three-year ROI. Yeah. Which again, so
43:03
the leisure industry, nice to have people want it, but
43:06
in the commercial space, it's always going to be about money. And
43:11
we allow people to get off diesel and to get
43:15
onto electric power
43:18
when they have large real estate. The downside is,
43:22
I don't think you'll ever see solar on a car. And if it is, it's a bit of
43:28
You need a big surface area. big boats, catamarans,
43:32
we're going to see solar on ships eventually. So
43:37
BC Ferries, biggest ferry company in
43:41
the world, or one of the biggest ferry companies in the world, they're starting
43:45
to switch to electric. So again, we can take
43:49
that energy and put it straight into those batteries. and
43:53
use them for propulsion. Yeah, it's not going to be the solution, but
43:57
it'll take the load off the grid as well when you then try to
44:01
Absolutely, I love that. I love how, Simon, you took your
44:05
two passions, you meld them together, like I'm gonna help find solutions for
44:09
these. It's phenomenal what you've been
44:12
able to do. You and your team have been able to do. I think
44:15
it's great. I can't wait to see what's happening in like six
44:19
months to a year. I'd love to have you back on and be able to talk more about
44:23
what's been happening to get updates. But thank you so much for
44:27
coming on the podcast and discussing this with us and telling your story because This
44:30
is where I feel like we really need to push forward is highlight companies
44:35
who are doing not only good for the ocean, but just good for people and their businesses
44:38
and their money and getting it cheaper. And I think it's wonderful.
44:42
So thank you so much, Simon, for joining me on
44:46
It was a pleasure and it was great chatting. I love talking about something that's
44:49
passionate. So it's good. Absolutely. Thank you so much. All
44:53
Thank you, Simon, for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I
44:57
love bringing this type of content to you, the
45:00
audience, because it's something that we all need to hear. But we just don't I
45:03
didn't know this was happening. I didn't know this was happening until the marketing manager,
45:07
Tony, reached out to me. after I put out an episode on
45:10
how China's putting solar panels in the ocean to get more
45:13
energy for its people. That's pretty cool. And Tony's
45:17
like, hey, you know what? You got to really look at what Simon's doing with open water solar.
45:21
It's incredible. And it's going to change the boating industry in the
45:24
future. And it definitely has. He talked about how he was
45:27
an engineer and how he came up in the oil and gas industry and then
45:30
the pulp and paper industry and moving to different industries. And he's like, you know
45:34
what? I wanna do something that's good. I wanna build a boat, put solar on
45:37
it, make it completely self-sustainable so I don't have to charge, I don't have to plug in.
45:41
And then he realized, well, the solar panels they have now, like currently, weren't
45:45
that great. So he decided, hey, you know what? We're gonna make a
45:48
better one. And he decided to do that. And he has done that and he is making it
45:51
for everybody else. And I just think it's
45:55
amazing. And so I'm going to put up the website so people can get a
45:58
get in touch. I'm going to put up any social media sites so you can take a look at what they're
46:01
up to. And I'm going to put those dates that he talked about and the boat
46:05
shows in the show notes as well. And if you have
46:08
any questions for me, you want to talk to me, hit me up on Instagram at
46:12
how to protect the ocean that's at how to protect the ocean.
46:15
And of course, you can see me on YouTube, on Spotify, and
46:20
Apple Podcasts. All you have to do is just click subscribe on those platforms
46:24
and hit the notification bell so you don't miss an episode. And
46:27
that's our episode for today. I am your host, Angelo, and
46:30
thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have