the essential
Enercoop Nouvelle-Aquitaine, a collective interest cooperative, promotes a new model for the development of photovoltaic parks. A project will become concrete in the Lot valley, the second of its kind across the region.
The Lot valley and the development of photovoltaic parks, a subject that has sparked conversations for years. Whether they are coupled with an agricultural activity or not, project leaders often come up against fierce opposition from local residents. Each time, it is the size of the park, the impact on the landscape or even the proximity of homes that prevents any consensus. In 2021, the Greater Villeneuvois agglomeration has even decided to put in place a document to delimit areas likely to accommodate renewable energies – and therefore other untouchable sectors.
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Further north of Villeneuve, the Bastides community of communes in Haut-Agenais Périgord has initiated a “Tépos” strategy, meaning “positive energy territory”.
“Degraded” land to install solar panels
The community then contacted a new structure, Enercoop Nouvelle-Aquitaine. “In the energy sector, we are an atypical player,” smiles Morgane Bénard, manager within this cooperative society of collective interest. It offers an electricity supply service to individuals, professionals and communities. Enercoop has 3,400 members, to develop tools for producing electricity from renewable sources. These are small photovoltaic installations, with local and shared governance. In addition, this cooperative has “a non-profit purpose”. The latter and the community of municipalities are in sync on a specific point: promoting small abandoned or little-used plots for photovoltaic development.
-And it is on the Castillonnès side that this project will develop, from 2021. The project leaders will therefore imagine a “small” photovoltaic park, located at the entrance to the bastide at a place called Grand Pré, near the Douyne river. It was thanks to the mobilization of an Enercoop member living in Castillonnès that degraded land was identified. It is located near the wastewater treatment plant and on the edge of the RN 21. This plot was backfilled in 2012 and has since served as a materials storage area for a public works company. It ticks, in short, all the boxes.
A power plant “long and not concreted”
At the same time, in the Dordogne department, a similar project is getting underway. Here again, a “small” photovoltaic park in a rural area. In the neighboring region of Midi-Pyrénées, things are also moving with a player who will be involved in Lot-et-Garonne, the manufacturer Courant Naturel, based in Tarn and in Montussan. He built most of the small ground-mounted solar parks in Occitania. When the Lot-et-Garonnais prefect gave the green light to the Castillonnès project, it was he who was selected to carry out the work. Here again, Enercoop stands out with its plans. On this land on the edge of the RN 21, the park will have a total surface area of 1.3 hectares, where only 0.3 hectares of the plot will be affected by the solar power plant. “It will be long and not concreted”, so as not to encroach on the natural area located on the banks of the Douyne.
But who says small format says production on the same scale. It will be close to 375 MWh per year, “the equivalent of 400 people and 8% of the electricity consumption of the inhabitants of Castillonnès” explains Morgane Bénard. For this plant alone, an investment of 300,000 euros is necessary. Money that comes from the members of the cooperative. But the advantage of this size is the speed of the work. They will begin in February, the inauguration is planned three months later, in April. It will be the second of its kind in New Aquitaine, after that of Dordogne. The Lot valley is perhaps seeing the birth of a new model in terms of renewable energy production.
