Nautica, at the Satec lighthouse on ecological and energy transition

In the last meeting at Satec, the challenges for the future of boating and mobility in view of the ecological and energy transition were addressed with Elio Jannelli, professor of the Engineering Department of the Parthenope University and Carlo Iacovini, General Manager of Energica Inside. . “Easier to use and more widespread for marine propulsion is electricity,” explained Iacovini. “Just as electric motorcycles have been accepted in practice, everything can change also for the nautical sector. It is much more convenient to manage the change than to undergo it. Skills will evolve because the electric motor needs much less maintenance”, he stressed. For Jannelli, one of the leading experts in hydrogen propulsion, “today the decarbonization process requires us to make choices, we are lagging behind the rest of the world, but the Italian capacity, both from an industrial and an industrial point of view, ability to bring the technological process closer to production gives us the opportunity to make up for lost time. In my activity as a university professor I had the opportunity to create a high-tech district on energy systems and the environment and on new technologies to hydrogen. This district unites companies, universities and research institutions. A consortium based in Campania but which also includes the Universities of Pisa and Genoa. A shipyard is also part of it, the Cantieri del Mediterraneo, which have a section dedicated to pleasure boating “. “It’s zero-emission mobility. You don’t need batteries to recharge, with hydrogen producing electricity by converting chemical energy from hydrogen with a refillable tank in five minutes,” he added. “There are experimental projects for the integration of new energies in vessels, for example projects for research ships with photovoltaic and hydrogen or electric motor and diesel propulsion, which combine efforts of the European Union, industries and universities”. Today, he concludes, “we are working together with the Polytechnic University of Milan and other partners on the hydrogen transformation of a catamaran for the Rotterdam canals with a hybrid system with an electric generator”.