The municipality of Chiètres will build a wood-fired heating plant – rts.ch

The municipality of Chiètres (FR) launched on Wednesday the construction of a district heating plant powered exclusively by wood from the region. In the context of energy shortages, alternatives to gas and fuel oil are increasingly sought following.

The boiler is intended to be sustainable: estimated at 30 million francs, it will supply from 2025 a hundred households, local market gardeners and the Papiliorama foundation.

“We imagine distributing 61 million kilowatt hours, 90% renewable, and this corresponds to a CO2 saving of around 10 tonnes per year”, explains Andreas Seifert, customer manager for Group E, Thursday in 12:45.

Today, this energy supplier already operates more than fifty networks of this type in western Switzerland, including 39 in Fribourg.

No shortage?

For its part, Gruyère Energie (GESA) inaugurated its last plant of this type less than a year ago. The wood used to heat its 15,000 users comes from the cantons of Vaud, Friborg and Bern. In a context of energy shortage, this economical and sustainable alternative is arousing interest, assures Dominique Progin, energy and infrastructure director at GESA.

“It’s a local energy that requires relatively little dependence on the rest of Europe. In addition, we should not be subject to a shortage of wood as we might be at the level of gas this winter”, he points out.

“Still great potential”

While remote wood-fired heating has been a dazzling success in recent years, the country’s forests would have enough to keep up with this exponential rate.

“In Switzerland, only regarding 50% of the annual increase in forests is exploited. There is still great exploitable potential in Switzerland if the interest is there”, assures Jacques Rime, director of the Despond SA sawmill.

The 150 kilometer Gruyère network cost some 110 million francs. It saves some 35,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

Clemency Vonlanthen/gma