Le FigaroLyon
Goodbye to the river turbines tested since 2019, hello to their biomimetic successors. The French start-up EEL Energy will install its first tidal turbine based on this technology supposed to reproduce the movement of fish at the end of June. It will be positioned on the portion of the Rhône where its predecessors have been tested, between the international city and Caluire, as part of a partnership with the Voies navigables de France (VNF). The machine has already arrived in parts at the port Édouard Herriot, where it is to be assembled. It will then be transported a few kilometers upstream by river to be linked to the existing infrastructure of their big sisters. The latter did not give complete satisfaction because of the branches that were caught in the turbines. Banco, with mimetic tidal turbines exit the turbines.
Fish tail
The EEL tidal turbine uses the current to operate a flexible membrane, which undulates like a whale's tail in the water. "This movement creates a symmetrical force that is recovered on a barge out of the water to run an electricity generator," explains Franck Sylvain, founder of the start-up based in Boulogne-sur-Mer. This breakthrough innovation is inspired by the ripple that allows the efficient and spectacular propulsion of certain fish that reach up to 110km/h underwater."
On the VNF side, we are ready to make the partnership sustainable. As this portion of the Rhône is closed to navigation, it is made available for experiments dedicated to the ecological transition. "This site offers favourable conditions such as current speeds above 2 m/s and the absence of conflict of use with other river activities," the VNF stress. Three other biomimetic tidal turbines will be installed in the second half of the year.
The call of the sea
The company, which employs eight people, had its barges manufactured by a boilermaker in Gravelines, in the North. Total cost of the machine: 200,000 euros. "We have managed to reduce costs and hope to reduce them further by switching to industrial production," says Franck Sylvain. The technology is patented for river applications. "It provides an environmental response, cheap and carbon-free as part of the energy transition," says EEL, which is thus embarking on a full-scale test. The electricity produced will be fed into the national grid and should represent 400 MWh annually, according to the company, equivalent to the consumption of 100 homes. Before extending the installations to other sites or even to the marine environment.
Several machines were tested in the harbour of Brest last year. "We want to develop them to take advantage of high tides whose potential is enormous," enthuses Franck Sylvain. Unlike the largely domesticated French rivers, whose power is already used. "If we take strength, we remove it from hydroelectric dams," says Franck Sylvain. EEL is therefore looking abroad, and in particular developing countries such as Congo Brazzaville and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it accompanied Emmanuel Macron at the beginning of the year. "Even their rivers are huge!" says the founder. As for the Congo River, it is the second in the world by its flow, behind the Amazon but ahead of the Nile, and carries 40,000 cubic meters of water per second, 20 times more than the Rhône.
