French engineer creates ambitious wind turbine
50 meters high, weighing 90 tonnes and named DDIS 60, this new generation wind turbine was designed by a northern entrepreneur who intends to revolutionize the industrial landscape of French wind energy.
Just out of the workshop, it made its first turns of blades at the end of January in Onnaing, in the Valenciennes region.
Its advantages would reside in a simplified manufacturing, its reduced cost, a resistance to micro-electric and multiphase cuts, that is to say with an alternator to the power converter deployed by 3. Thus, if one breaks, the wind turbine continues to produce at more than 60% of its capacity!
An electromechanical engineer, Jean Marc Canini, 55, has solid experience and has an ambition in mind "to design a new generation wind turbine," economical "and reliable at the same time."
In 2008, he created DDIS (Direct Drive Systems), 3 people at the time and worked for 2 years to design an innovative electric generator, with direct drive. Its objective: to offer a new machine architecture, more compact, lighter and which does not stop in the event of electrical micro-cuts.
But the major innovation is in the alternator that it must be found, because it is equipped with a power converter deployed by 3. Where a conventional electric machine has 3 phases, the DDIS has 9!
In normal language, this means that this machine is cheaper to manufacture because the less powerful components are more common and therefore more economical. It also means that if one of the components breaks, the wind turbine continues to produce at 2/3 of its capacity. The wind turbine is therefore available continuously! It could thus be deployed in areas where the climate is most hostile, on the open sea for example!
For the moment, this prototype with a power of 800 kW and a wingspan of 60 meters has a 45-ton nacelle. This “pilot” wind turbine raised at Onnaing is not intended to be the tallest or the most powerful.
DDIS has invested with the financial support of Oséo Innovation, the Nord-Pas de Calais region and FEDER funds around 3 million euros to be able to make a demonstrator that works, while highlighting technological innovation.
However, one of the objectives of DDIS is to license its technology to manufacturers, first European then Indian, even American.
The stated ambitions are clearly in the future to deploy this technology on 2 and 5 MW machines. The model and architecture of the electric machine designed by DDIS could also invite itself on the markets of naval propulsion or hydroelectric production, where the absence of multiplier, the lower mass at the head and the strong compatibility on networks represent real competitive advantages.
** Technocentre, DDIS has the status of Young Innovative Company and won in June 2008, the price of the competition from the Ministry of Research. Established in Anzin, DDIS now has a dozen employees and is surrounded by a fabric of local SMEs who participated in the design of this pilot wind turbine.
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