Stopped for almost a year, the Gardanne biomass plant (Bouches-du-Rhône), the largest in France, will resume operations at the beginning of 2025 following an agreement signed between its owner GazelEnergie and the State, the company announced on Tuesday. and the government. . “After several months of negotiations and in accordance with the framework defined in the finance law for 2024, GazelEnergie (…) and the State agreed to restart the plant (…) for an annual operation of 4,000 hours,” he wrote the company, a subsidiary of the Czech company Daniel Kretinsky’s EPH, in a press release.
With a power of 150 megawatts, the Gardanne plant, a former coal-fired power plant in the process of conversion, will ultimately have to provide 6% of the electricity production of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, consuming 850,000 tons of biomass, largely wood. It had been paralyzed since the company terminated its contract with the State in the fall of 2023, due to rising biomass costs.
800 million euros “to buy electricity in 8 years”
The Delegate Minister of Energy of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, Olga Givernet, revealed on Tuesday morning, during a trip to Gardanne, the amount of the agreement finally reached: 800 million euros over eight years. An amount that corresponds to “state financing for the purchase of electricity for 8 years, so that the Provence plant can relaunch its biomass activity,” he told the press. According to Olga Givernet, the resumption of activity on January 1, 2025 will mean “the elimination of more than 90 direct and 500 indirect jobs.”
The minister recalled that the State is committed to the “decarbonization of the industry, also reindustrialization,” for which it will have to “rely on solid projects.” This announcement comes a day after steelmaker ArcelorMittal’s decision to delay its massive carbon-free steel project in Dunkirk.
The carbon footprint of the site divided by ten since its conversion
Asked about the factory’s impact on deforestation, Olga Givernet assured that this “use of biomass” was “very regulated by our environmental code.” In November 2023, the courts granted GazelEnergie one year to carry out an impact study on the indirect effects of its activity, in particular on forests, following a decision to this effect by the Council of State, appealed by environmental associations. The highest administrative court then recalled that an industrial site must evaluate the direct but also indirect effects of its facility on the environment.
GazelEnergie assures that “all studies are being examined by state services” and highlights that “the carbon footprint of the facility has been reduced ten times compared to that of coal.”
Source: BFM TV
