What About a 72V Battery Bank?

Question:

Hi Jeff, first, thanks a million for all the great informative material you are freely sharing with the world. That's the true spirit of the web!  I have a 20 thousand pound displacement steel sailboat, and want to replace my failing diesel engine with an electric propulsion system. The replacement system/motor I'm looking at run on 72V. I would like to feed it from a battery bank made out of 6 G31 Firefly batteries connected in serie. Is this doable?

The reason I'm asking is because I can't find any info on the web about 72V agm battery bank. But I find a lot of information about 12, 24 and 48V battery bank. It makes me wonder if there is something technical or theorical going against such a setup.  This would be a battery bank dedicated to propulsion. It would be recharged by means of a mix of solar, wind turbine, hydro regen, genset and shore power. - Ben
 

Answer:

Hi Benoit, You are correct, a 72 VDC battery bank system is very rare. Personally never seen or heard of one until this email. Anything is doable, but you'll be threading unknown territory and be prepared to uncover unforeseen situations with a 72 VDC system. Is there any equipment supporting this system, chargers, controllers, DC to DC converters, etc. - Jeff