Six months after its commissioning, Engie Bioz has just inaugurated the biogas plant it has built in the agglomeration of Orléans (Loiret), in the heart of the Marigny-les-Usages business park and 600 m from the first houses in this village of 1,500 inhabitants.
That day, the operator, who took more than ten years to complete this project, had invited all its partners, elected officials, companies, etc., as well as the members of the "nose jury", a team of about twenty inhabitants set up by the municipality and the metropolis to alert in case of foul odors.
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Precisely, an incident occurred about ten days ago, before the inauguration. "We hadn't felt anything until then, but here for the first time, we noticed bad smells in the village," explain Didier and Françoise, a retired couple who faithfully carry out their task by noting what they smell, one week a month.
Alerted, the operator tried to solve the problem that he had not detected spontaneously. "This is due to the fact that we had large deliveries of vegetables that fermented outside. In addition the tide has turned. So we opted for indoor storage and decided to stop these deliveries, until everything returned to normal," explains Vincent Dubois, project manager, who acknowledges that the company could have been "more responsive".
The nose jury "continues to remain on the lookout"
To further reassure residents, some of whom have formed an association to defend their interests, the mayor, Philippe Beaumont, wants the nose jury "to continue to remain vigilant to report problems".
Still in its infancy, this biomethane unit, whose gas is injected directly into the network, will gradually ramp up to be fully operational in about six months.
It would then have to process 70 tonnes of material per day - straw, cereals, beet pulp, residues from the food industry, etc. - and produce the equivalent of the annual gas consumption of 2,000 households.
