Le Figaro Bordeaux
This futuristic project has generated a lot of ink but could soon become tangible.
Since 2021, the environmentalist mayor of Bordeaux, Pierre Hurmic, has been the spokesperson for a solar shade project on the 45 kilometers of the Bordeaux ring road (the longest ring road in France).
The prefect of Gironde and New Aquitaine, Étienne Guyot, has just publicly announced that he was “in
favor
”, while suggesting instead starting with a demonstrator on “
an urban boulevard
”.
As currently envisaged, the solar ring road project is titanic, with the installation of two million solar panels on structures 17 meters high and 60 meters wide.
The shade could supply the metropolis's 420,000 homes with electricity, while collecting rainwater, capturing CO2 and reducing the use of air conditioning and noise pollution caused by traffic.
All for a significant investment, estimated at 3.2 billion euros.
Also read “We have rage”: angry farmers block the Bordeaux ring road
“A promising experiment”
But “
it is perhaps not with the ring road that we should start
”, tempers Étienne Guyot, recalling the need to maintain and always keep in service this essential road axis.
For him, a section like Boulevard Aliénor d'Aquitaine, which connects the city of Bordeaux to the ring road for a little over a kilometer, would lend itself better to a first experiment.
“
There is the desire to obtain a demonstrator before committing
to a ring road
longer than the Paris ring road
,” specifies the prefect of Gironde.
The environmentalist mayor of Bordeaux “
welcomes
” Étienne Guyot’s announcement.
“
These declarations open the way to an experiment with photovoltaic solar shades above a portion of access to the Bordeaux ring road
,” explains Pierre Hurmic.
Since 2022, the elected environmentalist has brought this message several times to the State, until his meeting with former Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne in Matignon, in September 2023, to whom he asked “
to consider the production of renewable energies on already artificialized land, as provided by local road infrastructures
”.
“
Rather than looking for natural or agricultural spaces to install solar panels, let's take advantage of the enormous potential that we have with these spaces
,” Pierre Hurmic expressed during his wishes to the press on January 18, where he already mentioned implicitly the possibility of experimenting on axes “
which would be more suitable than the ring road
”.
The mayor of Bordeaux now intends to “
closely follow this experiment which is so promising for our territory
”, which contributes to his desire to make Bordeaux “
a solar city
”.