ASU Team Will Join the Water Transport Alternative Energy Competence Centre

Astrakhan has seen the launch of “EcoWave”, a Russian river expedition on a solar energy powered vessel. The ASU team, headed by Engineering Project Office Director Aleksey Titov, has actively got into gear of «EcoWave” and is not ready to rest.

It is the second time the expedition has been held — for the first time, in 2018, the eco-friendly catamaran passed almost 6,000 km from the Baltic to the Caspian sea without using any fuel. The destination was Astrakhan that time, while this year the route starts in Astrakhan and then passes along the Volga-Don basin. During the expedition, the researchers will carry out hydrologic investigation of the Don basin (water sampling to determine a set of hydrochemical indices, including a sample analysis onboard (biogens), solar radiation studies, studies on energy performance of the catamaran electric power installation and examination of the coastal infrastructure of inland water transport.

The expedition “EcoWave” is one of the areas of implementation of the project “Engineering Contests & Competitions” of the NTI MariNet roadmap. The main organizer is the Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “National Centre for Engineering Contests and Competitions”. The expedition partners are the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Faculty of Geography of Lomonosov Moscow State University and others. Astrakhan is represented by Astrakhan State University and Regional School Technopark. That’s the second time ASU has supported this eco-innovative initiative. Students prepare BA and MA theses on this issue, and last year they actively participated in the scientific and research festival “EcoWave”.