The holding of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP) of Paris 2024 on French territory and in particular at SQY, raises, among other things, the essential question of the electrical connection of the competition sites during such an event. Thus, Enedis organized a conference on April 23 at the Vélodrome National, one of the four Saint-Quentin sites hosting the Games, to discuss its partnership with the organizers of the next JOPs.
As a reminder, Enedis “operates, develops and modernizes the public electricity network over 95% of the Ile-de-France territory”, explains Marc Fleury, Yvelines territorial director and in charge of JOP coordination for Enedis. “We have been engaged for three and a half-four years in a sprint that lasts a marathon, with a lot of activities,” he says.
Like the other sites, the Vélodrome (as well as the BMX Stadium opposite it) has benefited from extensive work, with 5.5 km of cables, a restructuring and securing of the network, and a high voltage delivery point . “We above all restructured the network and made the network stronger to be able to guarantee the 2X5 megawatts on the Vélodrome,” also underlines Marc Fleury, also evoking a passage of the network underground. We also changed the electrical path, and this is a positive legacy for everyone, because tomorrow, the adjoining network will be more reliable and more robust. »
Extensive work, to bring about what is considered a small revolution, because through this partnership with Enedis, Paris 2024 intends to operate via a connection to the public electricity distribution network and therefore make a shift towards the Games. more responsible. “Paris 2024 breaks the codes, and energy is one of them. The world of events was used to running on generators, and there, Paris 2024 has chosen to connect all of the sites to the electrical distribution network,” recalls Damien Pillac, energy manager for Paris 2024.
And this while conventional generators run on diesel and are therefore more polluting. “London [lors des JO de 2012], a nominal 4.3 million liters of diesel were consumed for the event. There, the objective is not to use a drop of diesel,” says Marc Fleury.
It was also necessary to convince the broadcasters of this new type of operation, even if Paris 2024, during the Games, “becomes the owner of the [Vélodrome], so it is we who determine the type of electrical architecture that we will implement and who completely control the operation of the site during this period,” says Damien Pillac. “It’s not something easy in the world of events and in the world of broadcasters,” he admits, however. In the collective imagination of the broadcaster, [le groupe électrogène] is something that is more stable than the electrical grid. So there was work with the official broadcaster of the Games, Olympic broadcasting services, to make it understand that its electrical network would be the electrical distribution network, with emergency services. »
In this case, generators which will be used in the event of “ultimate emergency”, but which will remain in high demand on certain sites such as the Élancourt hill, specifies the energy manager. “It’s very complicated to bring energy to the middle of Élancourt hill. So over the two days of competition [sur ce site]we will have to run a few generators,” he explains.
For the rest, this partnership between Enedis and Paris 2024 is supposed to constitute “a showcase” to “show the paradigm shift that we are going to initiate”, affirms Marc Fleury, setting out the objectives of this collaboration: connecting all the sites to the public network, reduce CO2 emissions by 90% thanks to connection to the network, perpetuate the legacy, and reduce the impact of event activities. Perpetuate the legacy, as the territorial director assures: “When the Games stop, it will not stop for us. Enedis will continue to grow the ecological transition in the territories. »
The major work on the Vélodrome connections must be completed in the coming days. On other SQY sites such as the Golf National, they are also almost complete, while other Ile-de-France sites (Stade de France, Yves du Manoir stadium) have already completed their connection. The objective being that “throughout the month of June, we can carry out rocking and operating tests”, aims Marc Fleury.
