How to reduce your bills in the face of soaring energy costs? This is a dilemma that takes on colossal proportions for town halls and other local authorities. In Isle, in the agglomeration of Limoges, if consumption does not drop, the annual electricity bill will cost 1.8 million euros more than what had initially been planned for 2022. Mayor Gilles Bégou therefore announces a series of decisions, some of them drastic, to avoid blowing the budget.
Reduced public lighting and heating
This winter, the mercury will not exceed 19 degrees in the municipal buildings of Isle and in sports halls, there will be no heating at all. Not even in the changing rooms, where the showers also run on cold water. It’s spectacular but essential for Gilles Bégou, who also launched the installation of light detectors in the schools of the commune. Objective: to hunt down the waste of electricity in the classrooms.
“We don’t pay attention: it’s sunny and we don’t even see that it was lit or we go to recreation and leave it on. All that is no longer acceptable” says the mayor. The detectors are therefore programmed to automatically turn off the light when a class is empty or if the brightness exceeds 300 lux (unit of measurement of illumination). “For a student, you need 300 lux to light comfortably and not damage your eyes” specifies the elected official who ensured that the system did not penalize child labor.
More solar panels to generate own electricity
Like other municipalities in Limousin, the municipal council of Isle has also just voted for a new reduction in public lighting. The streetlights are now off from 11 p.m. in the streets of the hyper center, 9:30 p.m. elsewhere, i.e. in three-quarters of the town. And the light will be completely cut off in the summer. Isle also favors self-production of electricity. It already has photovoltaic installations for its schools and swimming pool and 350 new solar panels are planned for the concert hall and village hall under construction.
The electricity produced will directly supply the room when it is used and the rest of the time, “the surplus is sent to other buildings in the town, such as schools and the tennis court which is nearby” specifies William Tharaud, head of the management of municipal buildings. Given current electricity prices, this can represent a saving of 100,000 euros per year according to the mayor. Gilles Bégou emphasizes that this can allowamortize the investment in just two years, instead of eight years in the initial project.
The success of electricity purchasing groups for local authorities
Another way to reduce the bill, more and more public authorities in Limousin are turning to electricity purchasing groups. In Haute-Vienne, 87 of them joined the first program launched in 2016 by the SEHV, the Syndicat Energies Haute-Vienne. Today, the number has climbed to almost 130 and new requests keep coming. In Corrèze, 214 of the 279 municipalities in the department benefit from a similar program under the aegis of the Corrèze Electrification and Energy Federation, associated with ten other departments for its group purchases of electricity.
If we were alone, our bills would have more than doubled, whereas there, we limit increases.
The city and the agglomeration of Tulle took the plunge four years ago and their bills actually fell at the start, by around 10%. Today, prices follow the overall market trend and therefore increase, but the grouping limits the breakage explains Laurent Argueyrolles, deputy general manager in charge of the technical centers of the town hall and of Tulle Agglo. “If we were alone, our bills would have more than doubled, whereas here we are limiting the increases, even if they are still substantial, around 40% for this year.”
The prices negotiated by the groups allow the city and the agglomeration of Tulle to continue to pay the bills without making too many sacrifices for the moment. Thanks to the group effect, but also to the work of a trader who scans the markets on a daily basis to take positions and minimize price increases. A long-term job, since the groups are already working on the tariffs for 2024 and 2025. Limous