Hydro-Gen is a complete current turbine integrated system including: - a self-propelled barge - a current turbine, located under the barge (in turbining), or on the deck. The turbine can easily go up and down in less than one minute. This allows easy implementation and all installation, maintenance or servicing operations by a single person in a few hours, and of course without underwater intervention. The barge and its pilot install the mooring lines and the shore connection cable, or move them according to seasonality, in complete autonomy, without the help of any external support such as tug, crane, support building, ROV. This "all-in-one" concept is the key to cost control. It is an innovative, exclusive and unique technology in the panorama of marine and river energies : - The easiest to manufacture, install, move, maintain, repair, neutralize, dismantle. - It produces the cheapest kWh. It is particularly relevant for isolated sites, rural electrification, energy self-sufficiency, non-interconnected areas. The Hydro-Gen team has been conducting tests at sea since 2006. Thousands of test results and several prototypes have enabled the development of reliable, high-performance, low-cost technology, ensuring its customers an optimal use of marine and river energy. The company market one hydro turbine with a power of 20 kW and develops anoter of 70 kW.
Find out about the installation and connection of a current turbine in an isolated rural area on the River Congo in October 2021, with teams from the NGO's Potamai and Energies sans Frontières (Energies without Borders). A real challenge!
The good recipe: The combination of two simple ideas. A large multi-service community house - the Essentials Services Unit or USE - and a permanent (non-intermittent) renewable energy supply from a river current turbine installed on the Congo River, 200 meters away.
End 2024: Manufacturing the barge for the Kibangou current turbine. To reduce overall costs (Capex and Opex), facilitate logistics and promote the integration of future current turbines, it was decided to manufacture the barge locally. The turbine itself, power electronics and some equipments will be shipped from France.
Discover several additionnal videos on our Youtube channel
Installation of a "Hydro-Gen" turbine on an offshore oil platform. The purpose is to "decarbonise" the platform, i.e. to replace the generator that supplies it with electricity.
Summer 2025 : The company designed and manufactured a new turbine in the Republic of Congo. You can see it being installed, moored behind its 2023 counterpart on the Congo River, for testing. It is larger, more powerful, but also simpler than its sister. It will be installed in the village of Kibangou on the Niairi River to power an Essential Services Unit ("USE", a training and professional activities platform).
At less than 10 cents, our river turbines (i.e., non-intermittent) probably produce the cheapest KWh in Africa.
This new river turbine, designed by our company, is the second to supply electricity to an Essential Services Unit (USE), built and managed by the Potamai association. After two months of testing at the USE in Loubassa, near Brazzaville, it is being transported and launched at its new site, in Kibangou. The adventure continues!
