Drilling started for new geothermal power & heat project in Alsace, France
Old part of the city, Strasbourg, France (source: flickr/ Marius Brede, creative commons)
Alexander Richter
26 Jun 2017
Developer Fonroche has started drilling of the first deep geothermal combined heat and power project in France in Vettenheim, Strasbourg .
Announced already two weeks ago, drilling has officially started for the first power and heat co-generation plant from deep geothermal resources in Vendenheim-Reichstett, part of the Europmetropole of Strasbourg in Alsace, France.
“We are in the process of making a very beautiful transformation,” welcomed the mayor of Vendenheim, Philippe Pfrimmer, at the foot of the drilling rig which will serve drill a well to a depth of up to 4,000 meters in the coming months.
It must be said that the stage is symbolic: it is on an old oil site that the first geothermal power plant to co-generate electricity-heat in urban areas must see the light, by 2019. For the president of the Eurométropole Robert Herrmann, this is a “good example” of the efforts made by the territory on the site of the energy transition.
“We are aiming for 20% renewable energy by 2020, 30% by 2030 and 100% by 2050,” he said, considering that it is “in our To draw the benefits of hot water from basements, this clean, renewable and local energy “.
“Alsace is an asset for geothermal energy and geothermal energy will become an asset for Alsace”, insists the founding partner of Fonroche Daniel Arnault, for whom this step, which is the concrete expression of six years of work, is the proof That “we can do something now for future generations”.
The company developing the project is Fonroche and the development cost is estimated at EUR 80 million.
The president attended the first deep geothermal drilling in the Eurometropole of Strasbourg, on the site of the former Reichstett refinery. It is a first well at more than 4,000 meters that is dug on the first deep geothermal work site in France. If the tests prove successful, the cogeneration plant, due to be built in March 2018, will produce, in the course of 2019, the equivalent of the electricity needs of 7,000 dwellings or 24,000 dwellings in heating. The energy transition targets set are 20% renewable energies by 2020, 30% by 2030 and 100% by 2050.
Here video showing details of the project.
Source: Strasbourg, Strasbourg
