Electric boats charge in bursts. When several plug in at once after a weekend on the water, peak demand multiplies past what most marinas' existing electrical service was ever sized for. A non-flammable VSB buffer absorbs that spike at the dock, so the marina's feeder only has to carry the average load, not the peak.
California's CARB At-Berth Regulation already requires certain vessel categories to plug into shore power while docked, and the EPA's Clean Ports Program has put $3B in competitive federal grants behind zero-emission port and marina electrification, with 53 awards made across 26 states and territories so far. Marina electrical infrastructure, meanwhile, was built for overnight Level 2 trickle charging, not the 250-350 kW draws that DC fast-charging several electric boats at once can pull. The chargers themselves already exist. Kempower and Aqua superPower's installation at Yacht Club de Monaco is the largest public marine fast-charging site on a single pontoon. The bottleneck is the marina's grid connection, not the charger hardware.
Sources: CARB At-Berth Regulation · EPA Clean Ports Program · Marina Dock Age-The Future is Electric · Kempower / Aqua superPower-Yacht Club de Monaco
Fleet charging is a cyclic, high-power, short-window duty: several boats plug in around the same time, draw hard for minutes, then sit idle for hours. That's the case a VSB buffer is built for: it absorbs the simultaneous peak and discharges it into the boats, so the marina's actual grid connection only has to carry the average draw across the day. Because the chemistry is non-flammable with no active cooling requirement, it can sit at the dock without the fire-code setbacks a lithium bank would need in the same footprint, and it recharges between charging windows faster than a lithium buffer can safely accept, ready again before the next wave of boats ties up.
| Boats charging at once | Peak draw without a buffer | Feeder size with a VSB buffer |
|---|---|---|
| 2 boats | ~42 kW | ~5-8 kW |
| 4 boats | ~84 kW | ~10-13 kW |
| 6 boats | ~126 kW | ~13-16 kW |
Illustrative sizing from Blue Functionality's marina fleet-charging model, not a specific site's data. Every marina's real feeder size and boat mix changes the numbers. Tell us your marina's numbers and we'll size it for real.
This is a first-pass positioning page. Blue Functionality does not yet have a sized Marina deployment or case study.
Companies like Kempower and Aqua superPower (now NatPower Marine) already build and operate DC fast-chargers and own the marina relationships. A VSB buffer is the piece that lets those chargers run at full peak power without forcing a full electrical-service upgrade at every site: an integration opportunity alongside the charger networks, not a competing product.
The buffer is sized to what the marina's grid connection can already deliver, not to the fleet's simultaneous peak, so no utility upgrade is required to add fast charging.
Marina charging is a burst-and-rest pattern all day, every season: the duty VSB's 15,000+ cycle life and 60C recharge are built for.
Non-flammable, no active cooling, no fire-code setback penalty for sitting close to slips, fuel docks, or clubhouse foot traffic.