Regenerative breaking at sea

The term regenerative breaking, regen, is widely used in the car industry and the idea is to turn kinetic energy into electricity. A car that speeds downhill can use its electric motor as a generator and convert the cars movement to electric energy that is stored in the battery.

Sadly we don’t get any down slopes at sea. The only way to do regen at sea is to have a sail that powers the boat quick enough to make the propeller spin. If you don’t have a sail and you lack the ability to charge from the grid you can, as a mentioned in my last post, use the energy from wind, sun or petrol to charge off-grid.

Another, and less complex, alternative to charging the battery is to use the electric motor in the boat as a generator when the boat is being propelled by the combustion engine. This way I can, by the flick of a switch, charge my batteries with the same amount of power as when connected to the grid.  

If, for example, I am out fishing and I noticed that my batteries are running low I can charge while driving back home using the combustion engine. This regen functionality guaranties in an easy way that I won't run out of energy in my battery.