From production to delivery

The Auber plant integrated with the RER A station was commissioned in 2009. This plant, with a capacity of 24 MW, can cope with the growing demand for cooling needs in the central Paris business district. This plant’s installation in the heart of a high-traffic station has been possible thanks to the sharing of technical space with the RATP. The situation of the plant made site completion particularly complex: the presence of the underground train network, the routing of materials by rail and at night, etc.

Commissioned in 1994, this plant is located in the basement of Galeries Lafayette. The power of this plant dedicated to chilled water production is 33 MW. It includes 9 refrigeration units and ice storage. The Opera plant has a cooling system using cooling towers.

Since 1999, the Etoile plant has been installed in the basement of the SCOR building located on Avenue Kleber. The fruit of a conversion of an independent production unit, it is inter-connected with the Centre network, with an installed cooling capacity of 8 MW. In 2006 it was completely renovated and includes 2 cold units. This plant is cooled by air cooling towers equipped with anti-steam plume batteries and produces during peak periods and high temperature conditions. The plant is undergoing refurbishment in 2019.

Located in the basement of the Palais de Tokyo, this plant has many advantages. The proximity of the Seine actually allows cooling towers to be dispensed with. This location, favourable to the operation of a plant cooled by water from the Seine, has eliminated the need to construct around a hundred stand-alone installations and as many cooling towers. The environment, both in terms of the air quality and the architectural aesthetics of this exceptional area, has been well preserved. Thanks in particular to a mezzanine-style installation, the plant occupies an area of 2,200 m2 in the basement of the Palais de Tokyo, created by the excavation of the original crawlspace. The museum dedicated to contemporary design has therefore been able to maintain and operate all its noble surface areas. This unit includes eight refrigeration units with a total capacity of 52 MW at 0.7°C.

The eight refrigeration units are installed in a cylinder 19 meters in diameter and 29 meters deep and are cooled by water from the Seine. A pumping station is used to circulate water from the Seine through five plate exchangers after filtration. This primary cooling circuit does not receive any injection of chemical products. The water in the secondary cooling circuit then cools the condenser of refrigeration units. The eight refrigeration units with a total cooling capacity of 52 MW are divided into four lines of two groups installed on two levels. The two groups on the same line operate in series: the water temperature is lowered from 10°C to 6°C on the first group and then from 6°C to 2°C on the second group, the temperature delivered to the network. By not using a cooling tower, this plant avoids the consumption and processing of 500,000 m3 of drinking water per year. It generates no plume of steam and removes any risk of Legionella type bacterial dissemination.

Built in 1978, the plant was originally intended to provide cooling energy and back-up electricity to the Forum des Halles. Today this plant is connected to the CLIMESPACE central district cooling system and helps to provide chilled water required to meet customer needs. Between 2004 and 2008, major renovation work was carried out. The Halles plant now has a capacity of 42 MW delivered by 10 refrigeration units and cold energy storage. In addition, this plant has the special characteristic of generating back-up electricity for two separate power grids: the Forum des Halles and the Louvre Museum. This energy is supplied by five generators.

Located on the top level of a car park, this installation is made up of 13 tanks storing a total of 12,000 m3 of chilled water, a volume equivalent to an energy of 90 MWh. The water is stored at 3°C.

Installed in 1993 in the 12th arrondissement near the Gare de Lyon, this plant supplies the Eastern network, known as the Bercy network. It was created to supply the Paris Rive Gauche area (Development Zone located in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, around the Bibliothèque Nationale de France). Installed capacity is 44 MW through 7 centrifugal refrigeration units. The Bercy plant, like the Canada and Tokyo plants, is cooled using the water from the Seine.

To ensure the continuous supply of cooling and for increased security, the generation plants, distribution network and ETS are managed from a control centre with human presence 24/7. These connected technologies together achieve continuous improvement in energy efficiency. More than 700 energy transfer stations communicate in real time and 115,000 monitoring points are connected to the control centre.