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Sign upNovember 13, 2024
BlueArk Entremont SA
Le Châble
The end user is BlueArk Entremont, the innovation pole of Altis water utility company based in Val de Bagnes, Valois, Switzerland, and was the winner of the BlueArk challenge 2022.
Mountain monitoring stations, such as those managed by Altis in Val de Bagnes, often face critical difficulties in accessing reliable electricity. These sites, especially water catchment chambers located in remote alpine areas, are hard to reach and difficult to maintain, particularly in winter, when snow and avalanche risks obstruct access. Traditional solutions like Pelton pico-turbines require complex installation above the waterline and do not fit well within compact, prefabricated valve chambers. This made it costly and inefficient to power measurement equipment or ensure continuous monitoring. Solar panels are not usable too because of snow and other constraints
To overcome these challenges, Altis piloted a water-powered microturbine developed for exactly these conditions. Our microturbine fits inside existing infrastructure and generates up to 200W of continuous electricity (corresponding to approx 1 ton of CO2/year avoided). Field tests in Val de Bagnes confirmed its performance and reliability, showing that it can autonomously regulate power to meet varying loads while providing smart protection features such as overload shutdown, fault auto-reset, and battery optimization.
Our patented microturbine generates up to 200 W from water pressure, making it ideal for off-grid sites. With 50% lower OPEX and 20% fewer maintenance costs, it offers a 3.5-year payback period based on utility data.
Equipped with dual communication (4G + LoRa), it ensures reliable data transmission even in low-coverage areas, enabling remote monitoring and reducing site visits.
The plug & play microturbine takes advantage of existing pressure drops and gas flow in the system to generate electricity used to power ancillary equipment for the maintenance, monitoring and operation of the networked pipeline systems. The energy harvesting device is self-protected against surcharge and over speeding and capable to perform auto diagnosis and communicate with other devices. The energy captured by the microturbine and converted into electric energy, is directly available in situ for monitoring devices. IoT Microturbine offers off grid real time monitoring and control solutions with a high reliability over time and across operating conditions while enabling the pipeline to work at low pressure, reducing the greenhouse effect through reduction of gas leakages as well as the CO2 emissions that would result from an equivalent grid connection in a remote location.
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