Autarkic office boat

The autarkic office boat accommodates a small office with about 10 to 15 employees. The office has a total area of 120m2 divided over 2 floors, both of which are 60m2 in size (5.6m wide, 11m long). It is possible to choose your own office setup. In addition, there is meeting room with an area of 25 M2 and an archive room. The roof of the boat is curved and has photovoltaic cells. The archive is located at the bottom of the office boat with a limited floor height. The size of the archive is 15m2. Other areas in the boat are a reception, the toilets, a pantry and an installation room.
For the realization of this design we tried to realize the following objectives: Autarkic, Environmental friendly, Reliable Attractive and Affordable. With this project we would demonstrate an example to show that it is possible to combine high environmental requirements, and an attractive affordable space.
The installation concept is based on three pillars: energy generation, storage and consumption.

Energy generation Close to the water there is 40% - 60% more wind than in the built environment. When there is no wind, the office boat is supplied with energy by the PV cells that are directed at the sun at an angle of 36 degrees. The ratio between wind and solar energy is on average 60% - 40%. A fully electric solution was chosen because it has the highest efficiency with the best price/quality ratio.

Energy storage The storage of energy is equipped with PCM panels (Phase Changing Materials). The storage with the PCMs provides heat storage in the winter and cold storage in the summer. The buffer makes it possible to significantly reduce the power to be reduced. For example, a heat pump of only 2.3 kW is sufficient. In the event of a large supply of energy by wind turbine and/or PV cells, the cold/heat buffers will first be filled. Storage of energy in batteries will take place to a limited extent; surplus energy can be made available to the grid. The extraction of energy from the grid will only take place if too little energy is generated over a longer period of time and the accumulated buffers have been used. Such a situation can occur in the winter months, for example in case of fog in combination with a frost period, as a result of which there is no energy generation, combined with high consumption.

Energy consumption The energy consumption of the office boat will be limited as much as possible by ensuring a low surface, good insulation, heat recovery, energy efficient devices, using buffers and offering a local 48 VDC electricity grid in addition to the usual 230 VAC electricity grid.