MS Concordia - Esther en Rinus Goudriaan

The Goudriaan family has been sailing with Solarhatches since May 2022. In March 2023, they had an additional Solarhatch installed, bringing their total power capacity on board to 8.6 kWp. That should unlock a lot of possibilities for them! Read their experience below.

MS Concordia met haar eerste set Solarluiken

Why did you choose Solarhatches?

Esther:

We chose Solarhatches because we believe we have to adopt sustainable initiatives in inland shipping. While Solarhatches alone may not be the sole solution, they do help reduce generator usage and emissions. Additionally, it's an opportunity to try something new. We already have solar panels on the wheelhouse roof, but they are older and less efficient, so we ordered an additional Solarhatch. The Solarhatches work as advertised; we have significantly reduced our generator usage.

Rinus:

It was nice to have fewer running hours with the generator. The number of running hours has really gone down and we're happy about that. We purchased two Solarhatches last year, and have since ordered another one because we want more capacity. It will be delivered sometime in April.

De zonnepanelen op MS Concordia zijn minder dan 3 millimeter dik. Op zonnige dagen wekken de Solarluiken aan boord de MS Concordia ruim 45 kWh op.

What do you think of the user-friendliness?

Because the solar panels are very thin and mounted to existing hatches, you hardly notice them. You do need to deal with a cable per hatch a bit to connect them, but it's manageable and part of the process.

De Solarluiken zijn makkelijk schoon te maken met water.

You have been using Solarhatches for almost a year now. How likely are you to recommend the Solarluiken to other skippers on a scale of 1 to 10?

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it a 9. In our case, I do not see the possibility to calculate the financial aspects, but all things considered, I am happy with everything. I wouldn't have ordered the next hatch otherwise.

How did you experience the collaboration with Wattlab?

We have experienced the collaboration as positive. The first contact was about a year and a half ago. I read an article in a magazine about the collaboration between Wattlab and Blommaert. I filled out a contact form on the Wattlab website, and that's how the contact started. The conversations we had with Jeroen van Ooijen (Blommaert) and Kasper Keizer (Wattlab) were positive. We had enjoyable discussions and learned a lot from each other; I think I learned more from them than the other way around.