Renewable energies: discover the production acceleration zones defined in Mende

Les zones d'accélération de la production des énergies renouvelables sont prévues par la loi. Midi Libre – Archive Midi Libre

Le conseil municipal a adopté une cartographie qui prend en compte l’éolien et le photovoltaïque.

The law of March 10, 2023, relating to the acceleration of the production of renewable energies, provides that each municipality establishes acceleration zones, both for wind power and ground-mounted photovoltaics and on the front.

On Thursday, February 8, the Mende municipal council adopted the map below, established after digital consultation and the sending of a letter to all farmers from the community. Among the two opposition groups, Fabienne Hierle, Emmanuelle Soulier and Bruno Portal abstained, while Karim Abed, Jérémy Bringer and Philippe Pouget (proxy to Karim Abed) voted against.

The cartography adopted by the municipal council. Free Midday

"Lozère is one of the very good students in Occitanie in terms of renewable energies, reacted Bruno Portal. With its low population density, the department is a priority target for large industrial groups. With money, it is easy to convince mayors and landowners. As proof, we were able to easily install wind turbines in Charpal, a Natura 2000 classified site. In return, we are harming tourism, this other economic resource that we have. And we are asked to possibly impact another site appreciated by the Mendois, namely the Boulaines forest. We are in favor of the development of renewable energies, but not just anywhere."

This deliberation is not a free hand for anyone to do anything

Laurent Suau, the mayor, replied: "In the heart of Lozère, in terms of security of electrical resources, we have an interest in developing what specialists call abundance. But not at any price, I completely agree. It is not because we have targeted areas for accelerating the production of renewable energies that there will be photovoltaic panels on all the roofs of the city. Any project will systematically go through the agreement of the owners. This deliberation is not a free hand for anyone to do anything. In addition, I remind you that the absorption capacity of our source station is limited. I will only defend projects that have a chance of being directly connected here."

Arms exchange between Karim Abed and Laurent Suau

This point, during the last municipal council, was also the opportunity for the Mende Avenirs group to formulate some criticisms against the policy pursued by Laurent Suau and his majority. "You only focus on photovoltaic panels and wind turbines, Karim Abed intervened. Since August 2022, you have benefited from the Green Fund, dedicated to local authorities. For example, you could intervene in the energy renovation of public buildings, such as schools. La Loubière, in Aveyron, had the intelligence to use this fund and renovated all these public schools with a contribution of 340,000 €. There is also support for sorting and recycling bio-waste, flood prevention, fire risk prevention and even the greening of the city."

Laurent Suau obviously responded to his opponent, particularly regarding schools. "We have been using the Green Fund since it was established. I was one of the first mayors who went to the regional prefecture to obtain funding for the Terres bleues school. We did not wait for you to carry out energy renovation and sustainable development. We are going to continue. We have seven public schools. We only need two more to renovate. It’s not that bad. We can also talk about the heating network which was put into service in 2008. That's not sustainable development? Initially, no one wanted it, now we would almost have to make one second. We are not talking about the same thing."