Image Credits: NSF The NSF Energy Storage Engine in Upstate New York has awarded its first $1 million MegaBoost to Photon Marine, which will put a production-grade electric workboat, a marine fast charger, and a first-of-its-kind floating energy storage platform into service in New York State. For several seasons, a small workboat has been quietly doing ordinary things on the New York State Canal System. Pulling buoys. Towing dredge pipe. Hauling crews out to job sites. Clearing debris after a storm. What made it unusual is what it did not do: burn fuel. That boat, a leased hull fitted with electric outboards from Photon Marine, was a pilot project with the New York Power Authority and the New York State Canal Corporation. The crews wanted to know something practical. Not whether an electric workboat could exist, but whether it could get through a Tuesday. The answer was encouraging enough that the next chapter is considerably more ambitious. The NSF Energy Storage Engine in Upstate New York has selected Photon Marine to receive its inaugural $1 million MegaBoost award. Building on the real-world operating experience from that pilot, the company will develop something American waterways have not yet had: a complete marine electrification ecosystem, with the boat, the charger and the energy storage all designed to work together. Three pieces, one system The first piece is the vessel. A 24-foot workboat equipped with Photon Marine’s Gen-7 P300 electric propulsion system, which delivers up to 300 peak horsepower. Unlike the leased test boat that came before it, this one is production-grade, meaning it is built to the standard a fleet manager could actually order. The second piece is a 40-kilowatt marine DC fast charger, designed to support commercial, government, and recreational vessels using New York’s waterways. This sounds mundane. It is arguably the most important part of the project. A boat without a charger is a boat with a deadline. The third piece is the one t