Técnico Solar Boat: Pioneering Sustainable Mobility

Técnico Solar Boat is an open-source university project consisting of students from various engineering disciplines at Instituto Superior Técnico. Our primary goals are to promote sustainable mobility and raise awareness of renewable energies and our partners help us work toward this goal.

We design and develop manned boats, powered by hydrogen and solar energy, which are entirely designed and manufactured by the team. Currently, we have three solar prototypes, the one actively competing is SR03 (São Rafael 03); the first Portuguese hydrogen-powered boat SM01 (São Miguel 01), and our first autonomous prototype SP01 (São Pedro 01).

We compete in the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge, one of the biggest solar boat competitions, where more than 30 teams from various nationalities participate. One of our biggest achievements was securing second place in 2019 with SR02 (SR03’s predecessor), third place with SR03 in 2022 and second place this year, 2024, in Monaco Solar and Energy Boat (A-class). Our hydrogen setup, SM01 also won the innovation prize in Monaco in 2019, and again in 2022 after our improvements on the hydrogen systems. This year, 2024, with its successor SM02, we won the Eco-Conception prize, for the ecological design of our second hydrogen-powered boat.

We are very confident in our models and expect exceeding performances in the upcoming editions of the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge. We also have high expectations for our autonomous boat, which made a remarkable debut last year by clinching second place and the ‘Best Ship Design’ award in Njord, Norway. We are gearing up for this year’s participation in the Njord competition.

We have also undertaken various initiatives other than the competitions: in 2021, we organized and participated in the first-ever Portuguese Solar Challenge, where we secured the second-place position. Additionally, we have hosted our event, Odisseia TSB both in 2020 and 2021, the first edition along the Portuguese coast and the second edition in one of our archipelagos, Madeira. These events were a way of showcasing our name throughout the country promoting sustainable mobility and raising awareness of renewable energies.

Our team departments work tirelessly in designing, manufacturing, and assembling our boats, given that we manufacture most of the components ourselves. Our electrical systems department is constantly involved in the production of PCB’s, which are fundamental to the boat.

Having Eurocircuits as a partner in our journey is a privilege, knowing that they will assist us in achieving better results in our competitions and advancing our mission for a better world. We are excited to announce our newest project shortly, with more exciting updates to come.

For more information please visit the Técnico Solar Boat website.