Regional leader in renewables, Gardois VSB wants to join the European elite of independent producers

Livré en 2018, le parc de Gaujac est l'une des implantations de VSB dans le Gard. VSB

Avec plus de 550 MW installés en parcs éoliens et photovoltaïques, un chiffre d’affaires en forte croissance en 2023 et de nombreux projets avancés, le producteur gardois nourrit son ambition.

By summer, the offices will move to a new building a few meters from the historic premises on Quai de la Fontaine, in Nîmes. By March, the approximately 16,740 panels of the Soleil de Balsac photovoltaic power plant, in Aveyron, will be connected, adding their 9.2 MWp of power to VSB's total production, bringing the Gard company closer to its target. Namely, joining the club of the ten largest independent European energy producers, by the end of 2024, "playing a leading role" in renewable energies on the continent.

Twenty-two years after its founding by Andreas Dorner, who still holds 20% of the shares, the company entered, for 80%, into the fold of the Suisse Partners Group, in 2020. It took a "strategic turn: keep more and more assets", explains its general director, Maël Lagarde, instead of & rsquo;sell some to finance its new wind and solar projects, and thus increase its activity.

The company's activity has been largely based on wind power, since its creation more than twenty years ago. VSB

This Thursday, by revealing a turnover up 30% in 2023, to 21 million euros, the Languedoc energy company received its first dividends of its new options. Today he "manages 520 MW in wind power, plus 30 MW in photovoltaics", indicates Maël Lagarde, equivalent to the consumption of an urban area of ​​607,000 inhabitants. Of which 100 MW belongs to it and with several power plants to come.

3 to 4 M€ invested per year

"We have 65 MW under construction, with six ongoing projects, 60 MW in preconstruction", describes the manager of the company, that is to say "projects authorized and purged of appeal"entered a finalization phase, continues Adrien Appéré, the development director. 2 GW are under study, and 145 MW of projects are subject to construction permits under review, mixing wind and solar power with a desire for parity. And the context is no stranger to it.

The cost of wind turbines has increased by "30% in 2023", weakening the profitability of already complicated projects by the rise in interest rates, and manufacturers would tend to refocus their offering on high-power machines. "A wind project takes eight years, a photovoltaic project six", also says Maël Lagarde; so we get it out faster. "It’s simpler, in general", observes Adrien Appéré. In addition, the dynamic in France is favorable to solar power, with an ambition of 4.5 GW more per year, compared to a third for wind power. "Historically very focused on wind power, VSB therefore intends to make photovoltaics a growth driver" , expanding "300 additional MW on each of the energies" in 2024, distributed throughout the territory.

Battery, floating and hydrogen

Occitanie is not forgotten, Gard in particular. In Bagnols, Gaujac and Cavillargues, four parks are or will be connected, which, with Balsac, produce 18 MW of power. Three projects for a total of 32 MW are in the pipeline for a company which, if it has moved away from biomass (the "B" in its name), explores the field of possibilities.

Thus, VSB supplies electricity to one of the first electrolysers of Lhyfe, manufacturer of green hydrogen. She observes "the electricity storage market", batteries which could be a solution & quot;to the difficulties of connecting" of parks, or is also closely interested in agrivoltaism and floating solar power.

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