SmartGrids – SMILE
Deployment of smart energy networks.
Client:
SMILE Smartgrids
Project type:
Solar & self-consumption
Date:
2023
Localization:
Various sites, Pays de la Loire and Brittany
Introduction
As part of its roadmap 2022–2025, the association SMILE Smartgrids launched the TREMPLIN program, a support offer designed to bring forth demonstrator projects for smart energy networks in France. UrbanThink has been tasked with addressing four pilot areas, aiming to simulate collective self-consumption scenarios, optimize investment strategies, and lay the foundations for sustainable local energy systems.
Issues
The targeted areas, economic activity zones, emerging urban neighborhoods, intercompany parks – aimed to master their energy mix while involving local stakeholders. However, each of them presented a specific configuration and different technical or regulatory challenges. It was therefore essential to thoroughly study the technical, economic, and citizen feasibility of these projects before their implementation.
Process
UrbanThink, in partnership with THALEM Ingénierie and IGEO, has supported the four sites (Cholet, Elven, Nantes, Chavagne) by conducting collective workshops and individual analyses. The team modeled different scenarios of collective self-consumption, analyzed production capacities, evaluated financing levers, and designed citizen consultation supports thanks to its solution Athénergie. A PMO workshop was organized to address the key question of user involvement in these new local energy loops.
Results
This mission has made it possible to identify for each territory the optimal conditions for deployment of intelligent systems: equipment choices, economic model, local governance strategy. The consolidated results have facilitated the development of operational roadmaps for the establishment of shared, intelligent, and sustainable energy networks. The TREMPLIN program thus serves as a concrete springboard to move from intention to project, with UrbanThink as a methodological and technical catalyst.
