The building permit is attached to the entrance gate of the reservoir, more than 1 kilometer from the first housing estate, visible only to a few walkers. Without publicizing it, on February 14 the prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône gave his authorization to start work on the Vallon Dol floating photovoltaic power plant in Marseille (14e arrondissement). The first in France to be installed on a raw water basin intended for human consumption.
This 17-hectare reservoir is nestled on a plateau at the foot of the Etoile massif, just north of Marseille, in a sumptuous landscape of Provençal scrubland. It supplies a third of the Marseille conurbation, i.e. nearly 300,000 people, and a few neighboring towns such as Allauch or Plan-de-Cuques. Inaugurated in 1973, owned by the Société du canal de Provence (SCP), Vallon Dol stores 3 million cubic meters of water from the Verdon, then directs it, as needed, to the Company’s drinking water treatment plant. des eaux de Marseille (SEM), a subsidiary of Veolia, located a hundred meters below.
The idea of covering this space to produce solar electricity is not new. It is part of the national trend to install photovoltaic power plants on already artificialized sites, without degrading agricultural land or natural areas. A call for tenders launched in 2017 by SCP was won by EDF Renouvelables. The two entities then created a joint company, the SAS centrale photovoltaique du Vallon Dol, to apply for a building permit in May 2019. At the time, the project must cover 12 hectares, located on the immediate protection perimeter ( PPI) of the water catchment, an area established to prohibit any activity that could introduce polluting substances. And produce 12 megawatts (MW) of electricity at peak times, or the consumption of nearly 8,000 people.
Reduced fleet
Slowed down by the Covid-19 epidemic, the Vallon Dol park has made slow progress. The health authorities have taken the time to give the green light, given the unprecedented nature for France of a photovoltaic project on a basin of water that can be made drinkable immediately. The final favorable opinion from the Regional Health Agency (ARS) dates from February 8. It follows a report from the National Health Security Agency (Anses) in October 2020, the agreement of Marseille City Hall in October 2022 and the conclusions of the public inquiry, closed in December 2022. In the latter , the investigating commissioner considers that “negative impact on the environment” is low, although the basin is frequented daily by hundreds of birds, and the project « responds to the precautionary principle in health matters, including through its ability to be reversible”. It also highlights the presence, in the event of pollution, of an emergency solution: supplying the drinking water treatment plant with water from the Verdon, without going through the reservoir.
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