1950-1955 : prototypes

As of the end of the Forties, Lucien Romani approached the Institut Aerotechnique (IAT) at Saint-Cyr l'Ecole (Yvelines) where my father worked. Several types of small wind turbines were tested there on metal pylons. The last sample was the BEST-Romani 10 KVA aerogenerator. Not only wind turbine were tested there : the Ailleret anemometer standed on the top highest of the three pylons attesting the interest that the Polytechnician Pierre Ailleret had to the study of the wind power a long time before being the Manager of the Direction des Etudes et Recherches of EDF (there is a room Pierre Ailleret at EDF R&D in Clamart).

On January first, 1955 my father was recruited by the BEST and its first missions were to monitor this aerogenerator and the measuring instruments which recorded its activity.

Models derived from the experimental aerogenerator BEST-Romani (10 KVA) were produced by the Aerowatt company and equipped the Service des Phares et Balises as well as the weather stations of Paul-Emile Victor in Terre-Adélie. There is a doubt about the links between the BEST and Aerowatt. According to Andre Argan, Head of the Division Energie du Vent at the Direction des Etudes et Recherches of EDF, Aerowatt would have been a subsidiary company of the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique and the BEST would have had a participation there. This assertion however could not be crosschecked. The facts are that, when a wind turbine from Aerowatt had technical problems, that was often the engineers and technicians of the BEST which intervened (lighthouse of Sept Iles off Ploumanac' h, in particular).

The Aerowatt company was purchased by the Société Vergnet SA from Marc Vergnet who still manufactures and markets wind turbines under this trade-mark.