Photovoltaic systems are renewable energy sources with various applications and their implementa-tions in energy production and saving are verified. Installing those systems onto merchant marinevessels could prove to be an efficient way of minimizing fuel costs and simultaneously protecting theenvironment by reducing significant carbon dioxide emissions. This paper examines the feasibility ofinstalling solar panels onto vessels and also calculated the payback period from the adopted investmentwith respect to fuel oil savings. Thus, the two important parameters incorporated in the parametricanalysis are the solar radiation density and the fuel cost. In order to calculate the energy production ofthe solar installation systems, the globe is divided in six different zones, according to solar radiationdensity (Stackhouse and Whitlock, 2008). For one square meter of the considered solar panels the peakoutput power is taken equal to 130W (Kagaraki, 2001). The payback period of the investment dependsgreatly on the fuel prices. For a reasonable fuel price annual increase at about 10–15% the estimatedpayback period varies from 16 to 27 years. The more the fuel oil increases, the methodology reveals thatthe payback period converges to a minimum of 10 years. When using any storage media such ashydrogen, the methodology shows that the payback period increases and this depends on theproportion of the energy stored and from the storage media itself