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Danfoss

Wind power

  • Tuesday, 19 December, 2017

Air becomes water with wind power and Danfoss inverter technology

Located in South of France, Eole Water is the world leader in the field of water production systems powered by wind. The process allows the production of natural water with no impact on the environment. 

Using this revolutionary and unique technology, Marc Patent the founder of Eole Water have taken up an ambitious challenge: giving remote communities access to drinking water. 

With this challenge in mind, Marc Patent and his team designed a wind turbine producing water according to the condensing process, knowing that the earth's atmosphere has a high humidity. It is an important natural water supply (around 13,000 km3). With its "WMS 1000" wind turbine, Eole Water use wind energy to liquefy the air moisture. Humidity is absorbed and then condensed to extract water from the air. Danfoss Inverter scroll compressors VSH series ensures an efficient running of the wind turbine's refrigeration system. This innovative process creates a rain phenomenon inside the wind turbine and can produce up to 1,500 litres of water a day.

This great innovation is the result of the cooperation between Eole Water and selective partners. Eole Water chose its partners according to their specific skills and their ability to comply with delivery deadlines. 

"Danfoss was chosen as it is the world leader in variable speed compressors. Its skills and expertise have been essential to the development of a machine as complex as ours" commented Thibault Janin, Marketing Director at Eole Water.

Two inverter scroll compressors (VSH170) are installed in parallel and ensure an efficient running of the wind turbine's refrigeration system. Danfoss inverter scroll compressors have been preferred to fixed speed for two main reasons:

  • The wind turbine supplies the energy through a DC bus and a battery pack to allow the use of the "CDS302 drive" directly in DC current. In this case there is no need to use a DC/AC inverter to supply the CDS302, which increases the efficiency of the electrical system by more than 15% and reduces significantly its manufacturing cost.
  • As the compressor is running from 30 to 90 Hz, it allows the system to dehumidify the air even at low speed. Since the power generated by the wind turbine's blades is variable, thanks to the soft starter function with the variable speed technology it is possible to start the compressor even in case of low wind.

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