Geothermal district heating and cooling in Paris Olympic Village
Overview
With less than one year to go until the Paris Olympics, the construction site for the Olympic Village straddling Saint-Denis, Ile Saint-Denis and Saint-Ouen is on schedule. To meet its environmental ambitions Solideo, the company building the Olympic facilities, wants to use local, renewable energy to power the Athletes' Village.
To achieve this, in June 2020 it signed a tripartite agreement with Smirec (the joint association of heat energy networks, active in several municipalities in Ile-de-France) and Engie solutions. In particular, the Smirec network will simultaneously produce heating and cooling for the Olympic Village - which will cover 52 hectares or the equivalent of 70 football pitches - thanks to the installation of heat pumps combined with shallow geothermal energy.
The Olympic Village will be home to over 14,000 athletes during the Games. 68% of the energy will come from geothermal, while the final third of the energy that will serve the Olympic Village will be produced from natural gas.
The geothermal plant, with its four low-energy heat pumps, will collect water at 14 degrees Celsius 60-80 metres underground through eleven boreholes, so the water will be multiplied by a flow rate to obtain geothermal energy that passes through an exchanger. Three boreholes will draw water from the Lutetian limestone, and eight others will be responsible for reinjecting it at a sufficient distance so as not to alter the temperature of the water. In winter, this energy will produce heat, while in summer it will produce cold, as heat pumps can work in reverse. In total, the geothermal plant will produce 4 MW of heating and 2 MW of cooling.
Investments
June 2020: tripartite agreement between Solideo, Smirec and Engie.
November 2022: start of the geothermal plant construction.
End of 2023: geothermal power plant fully operational (start of production already mid-2023).
In 2020, Solideo asked the village's developers to work on simulations with Méteo France to design homes that are thermally adapted to future heatwaves. As regards energy, the geothermal project will cost €27 million, of which nearly €6 million will be funded by the Ile-de-France Region, ADEME, the French Agency for Ecological Transition and Solideo.
After the Olympics, the aim is to leave this sustainable village as a legacy for the Pleyel district in Saint-Denis. The buildings of the Olympic Village will be converted into offices (120,000 m2) and accommodations (2,200 for families and 980 special accommodation units for students).
The impact on CO2 emissions and climate
These Olympic Games will be used to transform the city of Paris and its surroundings. As the objective is to halve carbon emissions, the plan is to decarbonise 35% to 40% of the construction of buildings, and more than 60% of their use.
More specifically, it has been calculated that the Olympic Village’s geothermal plant will avoid the emission of 4,500 tonnes of CO2 per year. Moreover, the use of renewable geothermal energy will aim to limit the use of individual air-conditioning systems, which are particularly harmful, since they produce and reject heat outside to bring down the thermometer inside the buildings.
Summary
Depth of drilling: ~ 60 - 80 m
Boreholes: 11 boreholes: three will draw water from the Lutetian limestone, and eight others will be responsible for reinjecting it at sufficient distances not to modify the temperature of the water
Geothermal power: 4 MW of heating and 2 MW of cooling
Temperature of the water drawn: ~ 14 degrees
Units covered: Olympic Village: 52 hectares or the equivalent of 70 football pitches, which will be home to over 14,000 athletes during the Games.
Total amount of investments: EUR 27 million
Public contribution: nearly €6 million will be funded by the Ile-de-France Region, ADEME, the French Agency for Ecological Transition and SOLIDEO, the company building the Olympic facilities
CO2 emissions avoided: 4,500 tonnes of CO2 per year