Analysis and optimisation of a pleasure boat's electrical system using home automation technologies and power monitoring: study applied to a 53-foot flybridge yacht

The thesis focuses on the analysis and optimisation of the electrical system of a pleasure boat, to assess the possibility and feasibility of switching from an electromechanical to an electronic system, taking the automotive and home automation sectors as a reference. The work was carried out at Electrical Marine, a company that designs electrical systems for boats. The first project concerns the implementation of Schneider Electric's PowerTag, a power monitoring system for acquiring electrical parameters on AC utilities. In fact, considering that the goal of the nautical world is to move towards electric power, it is necessary to understand the effective consumption of loads in order to correctly size the capacity of lithium batteries. ABB's Power Monitoring proposal (InSite) is also presented, which is capable of monitoring both direct and alternating current loads, but which has not been integrated due to time constraints. The second project concerns the replacement of the current lighting panel, containing relays and fuses, with two home automation solutions, one wireless (EnOcean) and the other wired (KNX). A technical and economic comparison between the two proposals is presented, through an analysis of costs, weights and compatibility with nautical standards. The results show that, at almost the same cost as the current electromechanical implementation, bus communication and sensor integration can reduce weight and space and, above all, move towards an increasingly digital and intelligent direction.