A priority location around the Durance valley for players setting up projects in the field of new energies

The Val de Durance territory is defined as the natural setting for great projects related to renewable energies. It offers to companies, an economic and social network of public services with first class natural environment.

The valley is in the natural extension of the Aix-Marseille axis, and benefits directly from regional infrastructure. It is located at 40mn from the Aix en Provence TGV station and at less than 1 hour from the Marseille Provence Airport. The valley benefits from a motorway access of very first order which serves directly the CEA of Cadarache and the future site of ITER implementation, close to Manosque.
 
So, the local representative wish that the valley becomes a model of environmental protection, control and energy saving, extremely representative of what must be an economic development controlled, anxious to preserve its natural environment.

 

> Hydraulic Energy
The Hydraulic work « the Durance/the Verdon » considered as an international reference, allowed the department to develop and to propose a remarkable know-how in Europe.
- the Durance-Verdon unit produces 6 to 7 billion kWh per annum (10% of the French hydroelectric production);
- the stopping tanks provide drinking water to all the area, and irrigate all Provence (a third of the French irrigation);
- the lakes are a tourist attraction.

> Solar Energy
Except the well known fact that there are 300 days of sun/year in this department, there are also some local incentives for the solar sector.
A local stop shop to facilitate setting-ups has been created by all the economical actors of the department to guide investors in all the steps to launch a project.

> Biomass
- 7 million m3 of wood (approximately 40,000 used) : larch, fir, pine…
- Accessibility of forests (50% at less than 500 meters from a road / path)

> Nuclear Energies

In the Alpes de Haute-Provence department and on a regional scale, a real network exists around the Nuclear energy sector.

The competitiveness cluster unites the efforts of more than 340 participants in the region all of whom are involved in the development of every kind of energy that does not generate greenhouse gases, from small and medium-sized businesses to large industrial groups, including research laboratories and training centres.

Moreover, there is in Cadarache one of the nine research centres of the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). Its activities, distributed throughout various research platforms, focus on nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, new energy technologies (hydrogen, solar, biomass) and fundamental research in the field of vegetal biology.
The Jules Horowitz  reactor is a CEA project used to improve and test new fuels and materials employed in today’s and tomorrow’s electric generating reactors, and especially to prepare the 4th generation.

And, the ITER project is set up on our territory, near Manosque.