- The ADV-Tech start-up City Wind turbine performs a wave motion that resembles swimming by fish.
- This biomimetic movement gives the machine a high level of performance, without the blades making the slightest noise.
- A small 500 watt machine is currently being tested under the Aquitaine bridge, before manufacturing a larger 1 kW wind turbine.
- If the tests are conclusive, Bordeaux Métropole could order a hundred machines.
A start-up that has the wind in its sails. Installed on the Arts et Métiers campus in Talence, ADV-Tech has just signed a partnership with Bordeaux Métropole Energies and the city of Bordeaux, for the development of a brand new urban wind turbine prototype, which could lead to the manufacture of a hundred machines. Here's what you need to know about this world premiere.
What does ADV-Tech do?
This Bordeaux start-up was launched in 2012 by Arnaud Curutchet, teacher-researcher at Enseirb (National Superior School of Electronics) Matmeca, and doctor in electronics. He came across a new rotor technology, which had just been imagined and never implemented, and said "this is the way to do it." With machine tools, he then created a first wind turbine prototype, then a second, and launched his company.
The technological peculiarity of its wind turbine, called City Wind, “rests on the movement that we make our blades make, which we can qualify as biomimicry [engineering that imitates the living]. "It's" a wave motion that looks a lot like swimming fish. It allows "an unequaled level of performance in terms of yield". To date, there is no other wind turbine operating with this technology. "This is clearly a world first," says the founder of the start-up.
What is the nature of the partnership signed with Bordeaux Métropole Energies?
When Bordeaux Métropole Energies got wind of this project, "we were immediately interested, and we concluded to test a prototype", explains its general manager Philippe Denis. A 1 kW machine (which will measure one meter in diameter with two meter blades) will be installed at the Bordeaux Métropole Energies site, under the Aquitaine bridge, in April. In the meantime, she has been testing a machine twice as small, 500 watts, for ten days. The production of a series of a hundred machines of 1 kW [which may correspond to the electrical consumption of a fireplace excluding heating and hot water] is envisaged later.
Why does it take so long to manufacture this type of urban wind turbine?
Mainly for financial reasons. "It is very difficult to make small wind turbines economically viable," explains Arnaud Curutchet. At present, a 1 MW propeller wind turbine [that is to say the large wind turbines that we are used to seeing in the fields], is worth around one million euros, or 1,000 euros from kW. This means that a 1 kW machine like the one we are preparing for Bordeaux Métropole should be worth 1,000 euros ... Suffice to say that this is not the case [we would rather be in the tens of thousands of euros], because 1,000 euros is just the price of the blades and the generator. The only solution to lower costs: industrialization, which is the aim of ADV-Tech. And that is why the order of a series of one hundred machines could allow the company to cross a plateau.
What is the main obstacle to installing wind turbines in urban areas?
What is most criticized about wind turbines is the noise of the propellers. "The smaller the propeller, the faster it spins, the more noise it makes," says Arnaud Curutchet. But the technology of his City Wind allows his machine to make "no noise", he says. “The blades of the City Wind indeed rotate very slowly, they will constantly go slower than the wind, this is the intrinsic characteristic of our technology. "
Where could we install these urban wind turbines?
On the roofs of buildings, public buildings, in wind farms which could be created specifically ... "But first of all, you have to make a serious study of wind, warns the doctor in electronics, by having sensors in places strategic, and coupling this with simulations to realize if there are wind corridors in certain places. Afterwards, certainly that on the banks of the Garonne there is more air, but it still needs to be demonstrated. "
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