First delivery of heat to Béthune

Pontpierre, France, March 10, 2021 – La Française de l’Énergie (Euronext: LFDE – ISIN: FR0013030152), producer of energy with a negative carbon footprint, announces delivery of heat to the Béthune site.

A project unique in Europe

Thanks to the exemplary work of the La Francaise de L’Energie teams, the city of Béthune has now one of the largest urban heating networks in France, supplied with mine gas captured a few kilometers from the network. 80% of the network’ supply will come from green and recovered energy.

Since January, the two cogeneration plants with a total capacity of 2.7 MW installed in Béthune have been supplying electricity without intermittence to the local distribution network under a feed-in-tariff agreement.

Since the beginning of March, the fatal heat generated from these equipments has been reinjected into the heating network operated by Dalkia to supply the equivalent of 6,500 homes.

To  successfully deliver this project, Gazonor used its gas carrier status to connect one of its existing sites and deliver mine gas to Béthune via a new pipeline, therefore demonstrating its ability to deploy tailor-made local solutions to reduce the overall carbon footprint of local energy consumers.

An exemplary project soon to be replicated on other locations

The group’s next phase of development over the next 24 months involves the installation of over 30MW of additional capacity. The next commissioning is scheduled for the summer 2021, near our existing Avion and Anderlues sites, for an additional capacity of 7.5MW.

Julien Moulin, President of La Française de l’Energie, declares: “We are proud of the work carried out by our team on the Béthune project with the support of the Béthune Town Hall and the Hauts-de-France Prefecture. Despite operational difficulties caused by the pandemic, our capture, compression and recovery facilities are operational since the start of January 2021, in accordance with the commitments made by the Group. This new example of a local energy production and consumption project attracts a lot of interest from stakeholders in the region and we are already working to replicate this success in other municipalities in the mining basin “.

La Française de l’Energie continues to progress its growth plan with the objective to achieve an annualized turnover target of € 35 million for an EBITDA margin of over 45% by the end of 2022.

Next announcement:

March 23, 2021 – Half-year results 2020/2021