TECH TODAY

The ConnX system developed by LEITNER is based on a cable car whose cabin at the station is transformed into an autonomous vehicle which can then continue on its own track.

The drone boom is only just beginning, particularly in the mountains, where the device offers a number of uses: searching for avalanche victims, maintenance and technical inspection, preventing unnecessary risks, 3D mapping, thermography of infrastructure, snow conditions, etc. Val Thorens and Serre Chevalier have already started using the tool and have called upon Patrolair to assist them. The Aix-en-Provence start-up is, first and foremost, a training body for professional, remote drone pilots. “We specialise in training drone pilots in using the device for specific missions”, explains Antoine Fleischmann, General Manager of Patrolair. Because a poorly operated drone can quickly become dangerous. To complete its service offering, Patrolair has just launched UAV Suite, a tool which leverages artificial intelligence to monitor operations and improve the efficiency and safety of missions. It is a collaborative data base which provides feedback for users. A world first. “This tool already existed in aeronautics, but not in the drone sector. This first version is calling out for enrichment”. And this will take place gradually at the R&D hub created by Patrolair.

UAV Suite gives traceability of the behaviour of pilots and their drones, to draw lessons shared.

In 2008, the Grenoble company, McPhy developed a world first with the storage of solid hydrogen in the form of metal hydrides. The basic procedure involved absorbing hydrogen with magnesium. Crushed into a fine powder, magnesium offers a large contact surface with hydrogen. Adding additives then helps to speed up the hydrogenation and dehydrogenation process of the magnesium. According to the environment’s temperature and pressure, the hydrogen atoms are ‘absorbed or ‘desorbed’. The hydrogen thus captured is stored in the form of magnesium hydride tablets and can be used on demand thanks to a tool which converts hydrogen into electricity. Storage is entirely reversible and almost all the hydrogen energy stored is recovered at the end of the process. Other metal hydrides can be used for specific applications, such as onboard storage for transport.

Savoie start-up, HéliosLite is working towards integrating floating solar panels in the extreme mountain environment thanks to solar trackers on hillside catchment reservoirs and high-altitude dams. The experimental HéliosLite/Société des 3 Vallées project to deploy a floating plant with a capacity of 245kWc on the hillside catchment reservoirs of Ariondaz in Courchevel, 2,000 metres above sea level, to feed into the private electrical distribution system is currently under way. The challenge is currently to clear snow from the floating structures to maintain solar panel production despite the snow and the freeze-over of the reservoir. A technical solution currently being trialled is about to be adopted: 90 modules on 9 floaters with two sides facing east/west and equipped with a watering system on the edge. So far, photovoltaic generation is meeting objectives, and snow clearing perfectly meets expectations. The solution may be rolled out this summer on the floating plant in the Ariondaz hillside reservoir.

Co-run in France by the Tenerrdis competitivity centre and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Energy Environment Agency, with support from the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes Region and the European Commission, the European Interreg AMETHyST* project hopes to decarbonise the Alpine tourism sector through the hydrogen energy carrier. The idea is to share experiences and to collate best practices around hydrogen in order to offer concrete solutions to local authorities. “AMETHyST aims to support and assess the deployment of hydrogen solutions to decarbonise tourism activities, which are vital to the Alpine area. Using a knowledge-sharing approach, it hopes to steer public authorities into integrating hydrogen as part of their energy and climate planning tools”, explains Hervé Muguerra, Head of European Projects at Tenerrdis. AMETHyST key figures: a budget of 1.95 million Euros for 36 months and a consortium of 10 partners from 6 countries in the Alpine region (France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Slovenia).

Small Savoie business, WeSnow, has developed snow guns which use less water and which work based on the heat pump principle, by transforming the air being discharged.

“Thanks to a valve system, we can recover energy. We inject it into plate heat exchangers to make a hot water loop”, explains Didier Speck, Associate Director at WeSnow. The water loop can then be used to heat buildings and offices, swimming pools, cable car stations and snow groomer hangars. The technology delivers twice as much energy as it uses to produce snow.

Every year, the resort of Orres (Hautes-Alpes) plays host to the Ocova forum, which brings together technological, institutional and financial players around digital technology and energy for building the mountains of the future. The 19th edition, held on 9 January this year, was devoted to the contribution digital technologies make to the ecological and economic transitions in the mountains. “The aim is for mountain areas to benefit from innovations that are usually found in big conurbations. The issues are not the same in the mountains, which are more sparsely populated. More appropriate solutions must be implemented, such as the LoRa networks, with a long range and low energy consumption”, explains Pierre Vollaire, Orres Mayor and organiser of the forum. The internet of objects and artificial intelligence are a central aspect of the event and cutting-edge innovations are showcased. But the organisers start from the premise that technology alone is of no use, that data must be shared and that cross-functional players must collaborate and take action throughout the entire area and not just in one resort, in order to obtain tangible results. The forum helps players to form networks and results in a myriad of projects.

40%

Transforming plastic waste into fuel is the mission of Chrysalis, a machine stemming from sponsorship by Antargaz to benefit the Earthwake association. How does it work? Pyrolysis, a combustion system without oxygen and at a very high temperature, helps to break polymer molecules and turn plastic back into its liquid petroleum form. With 40 kg of plastic waste heated to 450° C, Chrysalis can produce up to 40 L of fuel. Milk bottles, household cleaning products, plastic caps, drinking bottles, bin bags, plastic food containers – the majority of polyethylene and polypropylene plastic can be recovered in this way, sorted, crushed and pyrolyzed. This innovative solution for the energy recovery of plastic waste, is a prime example of an efficient circular economic model.

The percentage of irrigation water saved by Menton, by crosschecking various sources of data from sensors, monitoring valves and weather forecasts, to make an accurate calculation of water needs sector by sector. This decision-making solution is based on data deployed by EGM. The Nice company is also working to provide access for Var fire fighters to DFCI trails (trails for defending forests from fire). “The trails cross through private properties which are often gated. We are working on a way of opening them without entering a code, by means of a satellite link”, explains Gilles Orazi, R&D engineer at EGM. Another practical example comes from the Pyrénées-Orientales Department, which wanted to obtain statistical data about carpooling car parks. “We have installed cameras to monitor and calculate time spent in the car parks. We have coupled them with a technical data base of registration numbers to find out what kind of vehicles stay, which are used for carpooling and to know the amount of CO2 emissions avoided”.

The financial saving made by Montgenèvre on its gas bill at the Durancia balneotherapy centre and spa. The saving was diminished by the increase in energy prices. In the framework of the European Leader programme, the Hautes-Alpes resort called on the Territoire d’Énergie 05 energy association to conduct an energy assessment in three energy intensive buildings, before devising an action plan to reduce their consumption. The programme has already been implemented at Durancia and the results are more than promising. The energy association has introduced a series of measures to accurately manage the production of heating and hot water for sanitary use, air handling units and regulating valves for swimming pool temperatures. Consequently, the centre cut its gas consumption by 26% during the winter season 2021/2022 and by 39% this summer.

Resorts are on the front line when it comes to spikes in energy prices. With very contrasting situations according to electricity contract due dates. “At the start of 2022, some obtained prices –which were already reasonably high – of 350€ per MWh. But the situation was alarming between June and December with 800€ per MWh on average, sometimes rising as high as 1,000€!”, exclaims Anne Marty, Vice-President of the Ski Areas of France and General Manager of Altiservice. The situation was still beset by subdued activity during the Christmas holidays. Even if they managed to achieve a decent winter season, some resorts may still end up with negative operating results.

Beyond purely economic reasons, the resorts have been working for several years to reduce their environmental footprints and inflation has certainly accelerated the process. Altiservice, which runs Saint-Lary and Font-Romeu Pyrénées 2000 resorts, has introduced three key measures, two of which concern ski lifts. “During periods of reduced activity, we shut down duplicate lifts”, explains Anne Marty. This way, operators also regulate the speed of the lifts depending on queues. “By reducing the speed by one metre per second, we make a 20% saving in electricity consumption, without clients even realising”. The third involves optimising packing, by accurately measuring the thickness of snow cover thanks to an on-board GPS. “The benefits are twofold: we save diesel because the snow groomers never go over the same section twice and electricity and water, by only producing the required amount of artificial snow”. This finer and more rigorous management then translates into the multiplication of sub-metres to read the consumption of every machine, to regulate the temperature and check the settings of radiators at the end of the day by area managers. Don’t they say that little streams make mighty rivers?