“At the last moment, we learned that the signed agreement was void. » Yvon Setze, for whom a handshake has no equal, has just learned the hard way that an agreement signed between two parties can lose all value with a simple phone call. This reached him on May 23. A representative of the Post Office informed him that financing his municipal heat network project was ultimately no longer possible. The expected 140,800 euros in bonuses went up in smoke.
“The agreement is signed and certified. Now it is swept away. We don’t go back on a contract like that, even if it comes from Bercy. We, mayors of small towns, are taken for idiots,” translates the chief magistrate of Montagnac-sur-Lède. Like him, the mayors of other Bastide municipalities in Haut-Agenais Périgord (Monflanquin, Salles, Saint-Vivien, Saint-Eutrope-de-Born) find themselves forced to review their plan. “Angry”, he took his pen to express his emotion about the situation to the prefect and the senators.
We’re going to do it anyway, drawing on our reserves. This will block other projects
For its public buildings, its village of not even 300 souls, ready to adopt a virtuous energy transition trajectory, has decided to do without its old oil boiler. A heating network powered by a wood pellet boiler must replace it. The latter is supposed to benefit the town hall, the school, the canteen, the village hall and municipal housing. The project is now in trouble.
A regulatory hiccup
Initially eligible for the Energy Savings Certificate (EEC), the work is no longer eligible after the Ministry of the Economy, which recently inherited the subject, published on February 27 in the Official Journal a clarification of the regulatory framework entered into force the following day. Energy suppliers, including Économies d’energie (a subsidiary of the Post Office) with whom the municipalities had signed a contract, are also faced with a fait accompli. “They have their backs against the wall. They are committed, but can no longer finance,” summarizes Glenn Violet, director of services at the Community of Municipalities. Economies d’Energie tried, in vain, to file appeals to avoid implementation of the decree: “It has a retroactive effect… It is a clarification of the regulatory framework which in fact defines what a heat network is . From now on, for it to be considered as such, at least two subscribers are required. » A bit bitter, the delegatee believes that “this penalizes communities which do not have the means to go through the historical players in the market”.
In Montagnac-sur-Lède, caution was required: “Even if with this type of establishment (La Poste business solutions, Editor’s note) we have confidence, I was waiting to have this help in my pocket. We’re going to do it anyway, drawing on our reserves. This will block other projects,” regrets Yvon Setze. Energy Savings, for its part, has not given up on the bonus paid to the municipality: “For this project, as for the others, we are trying to find a solution. » The simplest is to find a second contract, public or private. A neighbor located 20 meters across fields from the school could save the day.
