Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie

The Enerplage process was an R&D project installed on the Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie beach during the summer of 2013.

The installation of this prototype proved to be successful. Aside from protecting the coastline against erosion, it provided sweet hot water to the beach showers. To achieve that, seawater coming from this optimized Ecoplage system was desalinated by reverse osmosis.

This experiment demonstrated that a system of approximately 700 meters, pumping 500m3 of seawater per hour, could autonomously produce drinkable water for a town of 12000 inhabitants. This seawater could also be used to heat about 100 apartments of 100m2 each.

This prototype also proved that it is now possible to “miniaturize” an Ecoplage system (under a 100m) and protect smaller beaches.

Demonstration of the rapid drying of the beach on the dewatered zone :