Maine Turns to Solar for Oyster Farming
From a distance, what appears to be an old pontoon boat with a shade canopy was tugging at its mooring near an island in Casco Bay. Up close, the retrofitted pontoon is actually something quite new: An oyster-processing barge that operates without a gasoline-fueled generator.
The shade canopy is really a 2.4-kilowatt solar panel array. What looks like a big cooler is a box of marine-grade lithium batteries tied to an inverter. They turn solar electricity into alternating current to run a tumbler, water pump, and other equipment...
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