At Electricity Transformation Canada 23, Icetek's André Bégin-Droulet explains their thermodynamic icing sensor that detects onset and intensity. The technology optimizes turbine operations to reduce downtime and damage while improving grid reliability. Icetek provides expertise and data analysis services alongside the product for maximum value.



Check out IceTek at icetek.ca



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IceTek



Allen Hall: At Electricity Transformation Canada 2023, we're here to talk ice detection with André Bégin Droulet with Icetek. And icing. Welcome to the program.



André Bégin-Drolet: Thank you, thank you for having me.



Allen Hall: So Icetek is a new ice detection system that I was first introduced to by Borealis Wind. And Daniela said we got this new ice detector and it's fabulous.



It tells us all these great, wonderful things about ice that we never knew before and I had never heard of it. Which was odd, because we live in a place where there's a lot of snow and ice. I usually hear about ice detection. It's a thing that happens. But Icetek is a relatively new company based in Quebec.



André Bégin-Drolet: Yeah, exactly. So it's we started the company in 2020. So that's three years from now. But it's a spin off from a university project. We, I'm a mechanical engineering. Professor Laval University in Quebec City. We developed the sensor throughout the research for the last 15 years. So we did a lot of research, academic research.



It was a tool for us to understand icing on wind turbines. And then I started a partnership with Daniela a research partnership with them to help them be be better. And this is where it it all started, where... After the project, she asked, can we buy those sensor? They were not for sale 'cause it were a research product, at the moment. And then, yeah, this is when the university encouraged us to to go and start a spinoff company for that.



Allen Hall: Because the problem is not just knowing that there's ice. The problem is trying to know that ice is coming.



That's the trick. And a lot of the ice detectors that are out there are really binary. That ice is here. Ice is left, but in an operational sense, in a wind turbine, it doesn't really help you all that much. Leads to a lot of downtime. Yeah,



André Bégin-Drolet: so ice is a very complicated problem. Ice can take different incarnations, freezing rain, blaze ice, rime ice, ore frost different types under different conditions, and we learned that through our 15 years of research that it can take different Incarnation and we designed the sensor so that we could know when it start.



So the really onset of icing when there's no icing visible, but the conditions are prone to icing. And then what's the intensity of icing? What's the amount of liquid work content in the atmosphere when it stops the meteorological icing. 'cause when the meteorological icing is over, you can still have ice on the structure.



Is still, is this still icing? Yes, but it's called instrumental icing, persistence of icing. So all these different phase of the icing, you need to understand them. And as you mentioned, it's not a binary.



Allen Hall: No, definitely isn't. And I know Daniela trying to explain that to me several months ago. And it just went, there was a lot going on there.



So I'm glad we have time to sit down and discuss it. Okay. Let's just walk through what the sensor is. Because it looks different than any other icing sensor that I've ever seen. It's a, it's a metallic cylinder. Yeah.