Method for calculating the range of an electric motorboat using solar energy

Relevance. The need to shift the focus to renewable energy sources and increase the usage of the electric vehicles. This gives us the access to the areas where conventional combustion engines are forbidden. The goal is not only reducing CO2 emissions, but also it is necessary to increase the autonomy of vehicles and their independence from infrastructure. Aim. To calculate the power generated by photovoltaic panels based on the insolation of the area of Tomsk, Russia, to define the efficiency of electrically driven research boat powered by the solar energy. Subject. An electrically driven motorboat, built by a student team according to the "Project Activity" training program at Moscow Polytechnical University. Methodology. Calculation using empirically and experimental data and the data from the open source. Results. We have defined the method for calculating the running time of the electrically driven solar powered boat. We obtained as well an approximate amount of the electrical power generated by the solar panels for the area of Tomsk in summer. As a result, we calculated the boat running time for a summer day at a speed of 7 km/h. This method can be used for the calculation of the energy balance of infrastructure-independent vessels, as well as floating autonomous platforms for research, mining, and transportation at restricted areas.