Research on the synergy of solar-sail ship with route optimization

Facing the increasing fuel prices, combined with environmental issues such as emissions and the pressure of international regulations, the new energy applied in ships is becoming a trend aided for marine power. However, the actual efficacy of new energies, such as wind or solar energy, is restricted by marine environment factors which are mainly associated with the shipping sailing line. This study concentrates on the method of economical evaluation with route optimization for the ship installed solar cells. And taking energy-saving power as the objective function for route optimization, a shipping sailing line optimization design method for the solar-sail ship is proposed. Taking Singapore-Taiwan route as an illustration, the maximum energy-saving optimization route among the references is provided based on the method.