India earned a major boost on the global clean mobility stage thanks to a young student team of Coimbatore’s Kumaraguru College of Technology. A student-led KCT team called Team Sea Sakthi on Sunday won the prestigious Foundation Prince Albert II Award at the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge held at the Yacht Club de Monaco. The winning innovation addressed one of the key challenges in electric mobility: battery thermal management and safety.
The annual Monaco Energy Boat Challenge is one of the world’s leading platforms for testing zero-emission boats and next-generation sustainable propulsion technologies.
This year’s edition featured 46 teams from universities and institutions worldwide, and 26 teams competed in the Energy Class. Team Sea Sakthi emerged as the winner among these 26 teams for the award that recognises innovations with the greatest potential to advance sustainable marine technology.
This marks the first time in the five-year journey of Team Sea Sakthi that the team has both been shortlisted for and won the FPAII Award, making it a landmark achievement for the college and for the country. The team said it earned the accolade for its breakthrough battery thermal management innovation.
The team developed an advanced three-module lithium-ion battery pack integrated with an active cooling system and custom-designed cell brackets.
battery performance
To improve safety and battery performance, the battery pack also incorporated a Phase Change Material (PCM) developed using Paraffin Wax and Expanded Graphite.
Members of Team Sea Sakthi said that while there are existing solutions for thermal management, their innovation does not cut off the entire system but stabilises it’s temperature and keep the system working as well. “We mainly chose the material of paraffin and expanded graphite is because the materials are very cost effective, easily accessible while being efficient as well,” the team told businessline.
The solution has potential applications beyond electric boats and could be adapted for electric vehicles, autonomous systems and other battery-powered mobility solutions where thermal safety is critical, they add.
Team Sea Sakthi is a 12-member multidisciplinary student team from Kumaraguru College of Technology, Coimbatore. Students from various engineering disciplines collaborated on battery technology, propulsion systems, structural design, electronics, manufacturing, communication and race strategy.
“From being the first and only Indian student team to consistently compete at the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge over the past several years to now winning one of the competition’s most prestigious innovation awards, Team Sea Sakthi has demonstrated that Indian engineering talent can compete with and lead the best on the global stage,” Team captain Raghav A said.
Interestingly, enthused by the international recognition, Team Sea Sakthi also plans to transform the technology into a commercially viable solution. The team said it will aim to establish a venture to commercialise the system for electric marine mobility, electric vehicles, and other use cases.
The FPAII Award carries a €25,000 (approximately ₹25 lakh) development grant, which will help Team Sea Sakthi further advance and validate its technology.
Published on July 13, 2026