The Background
A customer was planning a river power plant designed to generate renewable energy from the natural flow of water. As part of the project, tech-solute was commissioned to develop suitable technical solutions to support the functionality and maintainability of the system—specifically focusing on the river turbine component.
The Challenge
One key challenge was enabling easy and safe access to the turbine for regular maintenance. Since the turbine operates submerged in the river, conventional access methods were either impractical or too costly. A reliable mechanism was needed to raise the turbine above the water surface for servicing and then return it to its operating position without requiring heavy lifting equipment or extensive infrastructure.
The Solution
tech-solute developed an innovative buoyancy-based concept involving special floating bodies integrated with the turbine structure. For maintenance, compressed air is injected into these floats, displacing the water and causing the turbine to rise to the surface. After the work is completed, the floats are flooded again, allowing the turbine to submerge back to its operating depth.
To validate the concept, a scaled-down functional model was first tested at the water laboratory of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Following successful lab results, the system was tested in a real river environment, confirming both the effectiveness and practical viability of the solution.
