In the buildings of the Maif headquarters in Niort, built for the first in 1978, everything was electric. small revolution in this year 2022, it is now geothermal energy that will largely meet the mutual’s energy needs. And to do reduce consumption. “This project will allow us to reduce our share of consumption on the heating/air conditioning component by around 30%. This represents around the annual electricity consumption of 140 households and it would avoid the equivalent of 36 round trips from Paris to New York. in terms of carbonexplains Antoine Bonnaud, who is piloting the project for Maif.
Savings equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 140 households
Geothermal energy is warmth from the ground. In this case, thanks to the water in deep aquifers that extend over several hundred kilometres. “We drilled two boreholes at a depth of 40m. We suck up the water at a temperature of 15 degrees. The energy from the water is recovered by the heat pump and returned either in the form of heating or air conditioning”explains Antoine Bonnaud. “The water that is taken from one point of the seat is rejected on the other side so it is totally neutral for the environment, there is no impact”, assures the project manager. It’s all regulated. “We cannot take more than 50m3 per hour. The goal is also to send the right amount of energy”, he insists. Work has been carried out in four buildings, i.e. 25,000 m2, to renovate the heating and air conditioning systems.
“We are not in a fad or greenwashing dynamic, what we want is to have a global impact. We have developed quite a lot of photovoltaic equipment but we said to ourselves that is not all. It seems to me that it is one of the first geothermal projects in Deux-Sèvres”, says François Bouillé, real estate director at Maif. The mutual which has obligations to reduce consumption as a company occupying buildings of more than 1000m².
The gains will also be financial. This project represents an investment “about 6 million euros. We calculated amortization in seven years”, says Antoine Bonnaud. And that was before the spike in energy costs.
– Noemie Guillotin
Geothermal energy, technology of the future? “It’s really a long-term technology. These are fairly long-lasting installations”, specifies Antoine Bonnaud. La Maif, which will launch studies to see if geothermal energy can be used on sites other than the Niort headquarters.
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