Among the big names in this sector is Fischer Panda. The company's UK operations director, Shaun Austin, was quick to point out that some years ago things were "somewhat sluggish" but over recent years business has continually improved.

He echoed the view expressed by many others that buyers are demanding more power to run equipment onboard. This, he says, together with Fischer offering packages that include air conditioning units and power generation, and the inclusion of the Antares range of batteries, is the main reason for Fischer's increase in business done recently.

During the recent Southampton International Boat Show many new products were launched to benefit from this increased business. GenACis announced its new combined generator, air conditioning and desalination unit. Deljian, as it is known, is built by Bianchi & Cecchi of Italy, a company that's been involved in the marine industry for over 60 years.

The 275kg unit is powered by a Yanmar diesel and produces 200 litres of water an hour, 31000 btu/hr from the air conditioning unit and 6kW of electricity.

David Melville, of GenACis is obviously hoping that this new unit will emulate the successes they have had with the Dolphin M3D which, he says, "has been selling extremely well". He feels the fact that it's quiet in operation together with it being both small and light makes it an option for smaller sail boats which is opening up new markets for them.

But it's interesting to learn that even with these new products GenACis is not going to be exhibiting at ExCeL next year but instead finds Southampton very worthwhile.

Another big name in this sector is Mastervolt, which is continuing to increase sales by 20% on last year's figures - a year which itself saw increases of a similar amount. Since we mentioned the new Mass Combi last month, David Payne has seen a good take-up for the new product. As expected the lower weight is felt to be a major factor in the buyers' minds.

Digital controls Like many others the company introduced digital controls and this is now standard across the range. Further developments are making the controls easier to use and new styling of the generator housing and increased access for servicing will be introduced over the coming months.

The issue of digital controls on generators is still one some buyers are none too comfortable with, a concern that has been mentioned in other areas of electrical control, such as desalination.

HFL's Scott Pettifer feels the company has got around allaying these fears by offering customers both digital and non-digital control options.

BB, "but another matter if you are in more far flung locations."

HFL's non-digital option is made up of mainly RS components easily available from any Tandy store worldwide. These added options are in keeping with the company's "build to order" approach, which its customer base feel is very appealing. With a 60/40 split between off the shelf and build to order the company is finding the benefits of having facilities like its own GRP department of great use in meeting special requirements of some clients.

The US Westerbeke Corporation, which sells in the UK via WaterMota, has - like Mastervolt - been making changes to its generator housings.

Expected to be seen for the first time at the Marine Trade Show, and then at METS, the new housing is going to be stronger and be more "pre plumbed" we were told by the company's inter-national sales manager, Robert Westerbeke.

Another company to launch new products in 2005 is Caterpillar. The new models will be added at the smaller end of its current range and will include a new turbo version (the 2.2) and a new 1.1 litre normally aspirated unit and will be shown as pre-production models at ExCeL in January.

Full and wide range When asked why the new additions were being introduced we were told they gave the company a full and wide range of products to offer customers.

With more and more products being introduced onto the market it's no surprise that a company has seen an opening by helping clients put together full packages of power plants and distribution.

Kuranda offers its clients a service to put together a full package of equipment that experience and testing has proved to work together. Brett McLellan, Kuranda's director, has himself had problems in the past bringing together a number of generation and distribution components to make them work correctly together.

McLellan and his colleagues are now making their skills and experience available to boat owners and builders. "It's a big market and getting all these items to work together can be a major headache, " he told us.

One of the UK's largest generator importers and stockists is Atlantis Marine, which sells sell the Kohler Power Systems range.

Described by the company as the "Rolls Royce" of generators the range saw the addition of new models to extend the range even further. Since the introduction sales have continued to grow and this year two new products of this sector are bring introduced.

Atlantis is also soon to be launching the Dynamica 5kW generator - based on a Perkins 2-cylinder engine. This product is aimed at filling the gap for applications in the 40ft sailboat sector. Dynamica is part of the Sain Group which includes Kohler.

At around Christmas AMP says it will also be launching a modular charger from the US company Newmar, which has been testing the new PTM product in California over the past few months.

The idea behind the PTM is to provide a charging system that can be tailored to a particular application with the addition of modules to create the level of charging required.

This is also designed to help in servicing and with redundancy should a component require attention.

Top of the market Aimed at the top end of the market the PTM is felt to be of most interest to long range cruisers and powered craft of 50ft+.

Another charger manufacturer, Sterling, launched a digital charger some months ago. As a result of it's popularity the joint UK/US company is looking to change the overall build plans for the company.

"The range, covering between 30 - 100 amps, has been very successful, " said Rob Crowe of Marathon Leisure, which markets the range in the UK. "So much so that Stirling are looking to drop manufacture of some of the analogue chargers and adopt the digital ones."

The range is proving to be of particular interest to owners wishing to upgrade and who want to avoid running a ring main around the boat, he added.

Generating the power is one thing but storage is another and the developments within the battery area, although seemingly less dramatic, are none the less important. Barden and Merlin, along with a number of others, are offering high capacity and smaller physical sized units for battery banks.

However Adverc would maintain that it would be just as sensible to get more from a battery with better management.

Although technically proven Adverc, maintain its system is well received by owners upgrading their boats' power system but ignored by the builders themselves.

Barden has also experienced good levels of sales of its range of Solara solar panels. The company says with the further developments within this product range increasing the power output, this power generation option is becoming more and more attractive.

The only problem with solar panels would seem to be supply as both Barden and Mastervolt pointed out that major orders - one to fit a very large array on a new BMW factory in Germany - had effectively swallowed up the total output of panels for many months to come.

Wind and water power generation will always be a useful method of supplementing or even replacing engine based power plants and this year's SIBS saw a new 400W wind and water generator being launched. Eclectic Energy develop small scale renewable energy systems in the East Midlands and feel an increasing number of boat owners want to "do their bit" to combat global warming.

C-Quip can supply to US specs Charles Industries is one of C-Quip's US suppliers and is, says C-Quip, the only manufacturer of battery chargers, isolation trans-formers, Iso-Boost transformers, multi-stage regulators and various other electrical components that are not only CE certified but also Marine UL listed.

C-Quips says this is the highest standard required by boats operating in US waters.

The RNLI has tested the 5000 series chargers and fit them to all their larger boats and now Sunseeker is fitting isolation transformers to all large boats headed to the US, says C-Quip.