Renewable energies and
energy performance

We design, build, maintain and operate green energy plants – which harness photovoltaic solar energy, solar thermal energy, wind energy, hydroelectricity and biomass – to optimise the energy consumption of businesses, urban areas and regions in France and around the world, thereby helping build the post-carbon society of the future.  

Our principles  

• Contribute to the low-carbon energy mix throughout France by promoting local renewable energy resources.   
• Supply energy in line with the energy-conservation, energy-efficiency and carbon-reduction guidelines set out in the French national low-carbon strategy.   

The keys to success  

• Adopt an industrial approach to our energy renovation offering at a very early stage by combining all the expertise from the Group’s different business lines (construction, planning, energy, etc.).   
• Strengthen our expertise as an integrator in the carbon cycle within the energy, industrial, construction and mobility sectors.   
• Develop expertise in recovering waste heat and CO2 in industrial settings and using them as a source of energy or injecting them into storage materials.   

Eiffage is asserting its leadership in developing fossil fuel alternatives to meet current energy challenges – in line with the targets set by the European Union to increase the share of renewable energy in its total energy consumption to 20% by 2020. The Group’s divisions design and implement cutting-edge technical solutions in these fields.  

Photovoltaic solar energy 

As solar energy experts handling studies, cabling and maintenance, Eiffage Énergie Systèmes companies work on public and private facilities all over the world and develop optimised, tailored solutions.  

Eiffage Énergie Systèmes commissioned Cestas – the largest photovoltaic power plant in Europe – in the south-west of France in 2015. The complementary expertise of Eiffage Énergie Systèmes, its brand Clemessy and Eiffage Infrastructures helped make the project a reality. Comprising one million photovoltaic modules, the power plant generates 350 GWh of energy per year, which meets the energy consumption requirements of Bordeaux city.   

Furthermore, Eiffage Énergie Systèmes’ Chilean subsidiary Eiffage Energía built the Quilapilún solar power plant in Chile – one of the largest of its kind in Latin America. With an installed capacity of 110 MW, it comprises 350,000 installed solar panels which generate 243 GWh of energy per year, supplying 110,000 homes. Eiffage Energía was tasked with all civil infrastructure works, including earthworks, roads, site accommodation and access to factories. It also carried out the mechanical and electrical installation works, testing and commissioning.  

Geothermal energy   

Located a few kilometres from the Mediterranean coast, the Smartseille eco-district in the heart of Marseille uses seawater to meet its heating and air-conditioning requirements through ocean thermal energy conversion. Implemented by Eiffage and its partner EDF Optimal Solutions, this innovative technology harnesses calories and frigories from sea water below the surface to generate energy for users.  

With this technology providing a natural source of heat or cold depending on the season, 75% of Smartseille eco-district’s energy comes from renewable sources.   

The offshore wind power market grew by almost 30% each year between 2010 and 2018. With 15 years’ experience in this sector, Eiffage Métal’s Belgian subsidiary Smulders has developed expertise in engineering and producing foundations, transition pieces and electric substations for wind farms in harmony with the marine environment and therefore become synonymous with largescale European projects. For instance, in March 2019 Smulders won the contract to build the Moray East wind farm off the north-eastern coast of Scotland, which includes supplying and installing 100 jackets, each weighing 1,000 tonnes. In France, Eiffage Métal also won the contract to design, produce and install monopile foundations for the first French offshore wind farm, located off the Saint-Nazaire coast (western France). These impressive achievements strengthen Eiffage’s positions on the offshore wind power market.  

We now offer our clients real-time energy monitoring tools to help them significantly reduce the energy consumption of their buildings or installations. Operation and maintenance works and energy conservation and efficiency are at the heart of the comprehensive services Eiffage Énergie Systèmes provides property managers for their buildings and facilities (industry, service sector, social housing, etc.).   

The five pillars of our proposed energy optimisation approach are:  

• energy and asset auditing  
• energy monitoring  
• installation operation, maintenance and management  
• energy coaching  
• guaranteeing sustainable energy performance and providing funding solutions (energy savings certificates, European or national grants, etc.).  

Eiffage Énergie Systèmes uses its Expercité® offering to support local authorities in France and the Benelux countries by helping them save energy, particularly for energy performance contracts.   

For instance, Eiffage Énergie Systèmes teams are carrying out digital energy monitoring for the city of Paris in the largest project of its kind in Europe. This involves increasing the capacity of a conventional monitoring system by rolling out 5,000 smart sensors to improve temperature control in 1,000 buildings. An IoT-based network collects and processes the required data. It provides real-time monitoring to adjust energy requirements as accurately as possible and achieve significant energy savings.   

Read more about Expercité®