In Strasbourg, the green revolution is underway

Reichstett (France) – Deep geothermal energy, biombad, heat pumps, hydropower: Eurométropole de Strasbourg prepares its green revolution and multiplies building sites to prepare a future post-petroleum and post-Fessenheim, with 100% of renewable energy in 2050 as a goal.
  

In Reichstett, a few kilometers north of Strasbourg, the site of the former oil refinery closed in 2011 is changing: a " rig " (platform) equipped with a Powerful arm on hydraulic cylinders, built a deep geothermal drilling, charged to capture at 4,680 m, groundwater at 220 ° C, the hottest in France at this depth.

On the site of the Aquitaine Fonroche, up to 50 operators work on this machine which, in a back-and-forth movement and a thud, hollow and sinks day and night, in the earth's crust the tubes steel to form the geothermal well.

" The first borehole is fetching hot water, the water then goes into a heat exchanger that will form the thermie, before returning to a second borehole, nothing comes out on the surface ", explains Jean-Philippe Soulé, General Manager of Fonroche Géothermie to the press.

The project, one of the largest projects of this type in continental Europe, will be completed in 2019.

It will eventually supply the hot water and heating network of the Alsatian metropolis: public establishments, houses retirement homes, schools, hospitals and a third of the 65,000 housing units of the HLM park.

" It calculates that the distance between the two boreholes gives 50 years of operation, for a loss of water temperature of 3 ° C ," said Mr. Soulé.

In this desert landscape, swept by gusts of sand dust, one can see in the distance in the middle of vast oil tanks, the circular tower with white and red stripes of the former refinery burner.

The community has chosen to preserve this wasteland where today nest raptors.

Once the construction site is finished, the Reichstett rig will be dismantled to operate on two other future geothermal projects in Illkirch-Graffenstaden and Eckbolsheim.

There will then remain more than a heat exchanger, a facility " barely larger than a shoebox ", rejoices Alain Jund (EELV), Deputy in charge of Transition energy.

– Energy autonomy –

With three geothermal projects, a biombad plant generating biomethane reinjected into the gas network, a hydroelectric power station on the Rhine, the Eurometropolis (33 municipalities, 500,000 inhabitants), aims for energy autonomy within 32 years.

She sees a " realistic objective " that will allow it to concretize " locally " the Paris Agreement at the end of 2015 on the fight against climate change. This agreement aims to halve energy consumption by 2050 globally.

In France, " the import of energy is today more than 61 billion euros.We can not continue to rely on others, buy Russian gas or oil + + democracies of the Gulf (…) The Eurometropolis must prepare the post-oil and engage post-Fessenheim "said Alain Jund.

In May, EDF announced that a possible new delay of a few months in the Flamanville EPR could postpone the closure of Fessenheim in the summer of 2019.

In addition to its 400 heat pumps already operational, Strasbourg wants to have thermal power plants based on wood waste and a " methanation project " for its 20,000 t of green waste.

For photovoltaic energy, still shy, a cadastre will " define the solar potential on the agglomeration ".

" That a metropolis like Strasbourg is launching is a very good thing, it is certain that it will work, but it is only a part of the way, it will not be necessary to forget 'go further ', says Marc Jedliczka, spokesman for the NeWaWatt Association, a network of experts, engineers and lawyers.

The " sobriety " in terms of consumption and " efficiency " energy (insulation, equipment performance), represent " halfway the way "and" the other half is the production "says the badociation.

Like Strasbourg, more and more metropolises have begun their energy transition, Negawatt observes.

The badociation accompanies that of Lyon in " European exchange of methodologies " with the cities of northern Europe, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Vienna.

" We have seen that these cities are very advanced in terms of approaches ," says Jedlinczka.