Paris-Saclay district heating and cooling grid: Veolia takes over the operation!
The Paris-Saclay district heating and cooling grid is one of the five pilot sites from D2Grids European project. It is the first 5GDHC grid in France, including an ambient temperature loop.
In 2015, the Etablissement public d'aménagement (EPA) of Paris-Saclay and IDEX group signed a seven-year contract, and the first connections of the grid to the campus buildings began in 2016. IDEX was able to provide the EPA their technical and financial expertise. In coordination with the scientific institutions and companies connected to the project. In 2022, this contract came to its end, and the company Veolia was chosen to take over the operation of the 5GDHC grid of Paris-Saclay urban campus, from January 2023.
Unique in Europe, this installation will enable the development of an ambitious energy mix combining deep geothermal energy, waste heat from the CNRS supercomputer, and heat recovery from the cooling grid. Thanks to all these local resources, the grid is controlled automatically, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Within the framework of their partnership, EPA Paris-Saclay is responsible for the project management and financing of the grid, while Veolia provides its technical and human skills to guarantee the continuity of the service and the expected level of performance. Veolia also ensures the commercial operation of the grid.
Veolia will support the development of the heating and cooling grid by strengthening the production infrastructure and enable the optimisation and diversification of its energy mix. The purpose is to double the grid capacity by 2028, i.e. more than 100 GWh/year of heat and 20 GWh/year of cold sold, which corresponds to the average consumption of 10,000 households each year. The doubling of the heat supply will be done while ensuring a rate of renewable and recovered energy of more than 50%, allowing the production of heat that is carbon-free.
Philippe Van de Maele, General manager of the EPA Paris-Saclay, underlined the importance of energy exchange on the urban campus and the goal of using mostly local and renewable energy. As an urban energy exchange infrastructure, the Paris-Saclay grid enables the buildings connected to become both producers and consumers of heat and cold.
Financial support from ADEME under the Heat Fund and from Interreg NWE as part of the D2Grids project confirms the importance of this project in the energy transition. The collaboration between Veolia and EPA Paris-Saclay illustrates the ability of companies and local authorities to work together in order to achieve ambitious decarbonisation and sustainable development objectives.
Read the press realease! (French)
paul.capgras[a]construction21.fr
