The Social Residence “L’Autre Toit”, inaugurated this Tuesday, produces its own energy (heating and electricity).
It is a first in France. The system existed in some central heatings, industrial and hospital boiler rooms, but it had never been installed in residential areas. This is done at the house “L’Autre Toit” (“The Other Roof”), chemin de l’Espérance, Besançon. The social residence, inaugurated this Tuesday, February 7, generates its own energy – heating and electricity – for a self-consumption.

Reduced Living Costs
“GRDF wanted to experiment with a new technical solution to the energy transition,” explains Christophe Desessard, regional director of Europe’s leading distributor of natural gas. Developed and manufactured by a Dutch company and commissioned in cooperation with Grand Besançon Habitat (GBH), the system bears a strange name of ” micro-turbine micro-cogeneration”. The turbine generates the electricity and the heat of the system is recovered for the heating circuit of the building. “We are here at the top of the efficiency,” says Christophe Dessard.

“The system reduces both greenhouse gas emissions and peaks in consumption, limiting the cost of maintenance and power generation,” explains Regional Director GRDF. “The energy bill is also reduced, which lowers the burden on residents,” adds Pascal Curie, president of GBH.
The efficiency of the system, put into operation a month ago, is measured in real time by some twenty sensors in the building’s boiler room. “This is a first test in real conditions, the data are collected and analysed at the Center for Research and Innovation on Gas and New Energies (CRIGEN)”, concludes Youness Hssaini, engineer of the Engie group to which CRIGEN belongs.

The original article was published in the regional newspaper L’Est Republicain on February 10, 2017: EnerTwin in Besancon