While the Alpes-Maritimes department is one of the sunniest in France, the number of solar panel installations is lower than in the North.
With the energy crisis, the trend is being reversed.
Individuals and public authorities are embarking on the installation of photovoltaic panels for economic but also ecological reasons.
“I don't understand why all my neighbors don't have one,” exclaims David, a resident of Biot in the Alpes-Maritimes.
He talks about photovoltaic panels.
He installed them in 2019 for “ecological reasons” and is “delighted” with the result.
“I live in the South, in other words a solar dream, and I have good exposure, he lists.
Aesthetics might be the only reason owners might be put off, but that seems absurd to me.
“Because it has advantages.
Especially since the energy crisis.
“The return on investment is rapid,” he continues.
It is true that it takes a little money for the installation but it is reasonable.
If you can buy a new car, you might as well bet on solar panels.
»
For an installation capable of producing a maximum power of 3 kWp, it is necessary to count between “7,500 and 9,000 euros”.
According to Marc Simian, owner of Azur solar system, the oldest installer in the region, “it has paid for itself in less than ten years”.
He develops: “The price paid for self-consumption is half of what the person pays to EDF”.
While for a few years, the demand was not necessarily there (there are about 5,000 installations in the department against more than 7,500 in the North), since “the crisis in Ukraine, it explodes”.
“People want to become autonomous and in control of their consumption,” summarizes the engineer.
Every month, its demand is growing.
A lack of exemplarity soon to be remedied?
The Alpes-Maritimes department is therefore one of the sunniest in France with more than 2,700 hours per year "but one of the least well equipped", continues Marc Simian.
According to him, this weak enthusiasm would come from a lack of "exemplary" on the part of the public authorities.
A trend that is evolving.
The mayor of Cannes made it a promise of mandate.
In Mougins, panels are installed on schools, and in Nice, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) has just had 54 installed on its listed building.
The Nice Côte d'Azur metropolis, for its part, announced during the presentation of its "energy sobriety" plan to launch a "global call for private projects".
It makes "public buildings of all municipalities available" to create "a solar ecosystem".
Thus, "with 17% of roofs equipped, we could produce 4,000 GWH per year", assured Christian Estrosi.
An open data mapping tool has also been put online on the city's website to visualize the "solar potential of houses and condominiums" and thus encourage residents to switch to solar power.
A “late” awareness
For David, "it's a shame that there was no real political will before".
Richard Chemla, vice-president of the metropolis and assistant to the ecology at the town hall of Nice, explains it by a difference of culture compared to the North.
“That wasn't our way of thinking for years,” he says.
We thought it was expensive to invest and the majority of the population were seniors, so there was no point in it.
Today, we are in the process of raising the architectural and urban planning constraints that prevented installing a panel on the roof if we lived next to a listed building.
But it is time to show that it is possible to install, especially when you benefit from 300 days of good weather a year.
We must lead by example.
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Indeed, “priority is given to residential, industrial and commercial areas” to install photovoltaic panels, specifies the metropolis.
But projects can be validated when they “are of quality, with integration efforts and worked upstream with the architect of the buildings of France”.
The state also simplified the procedures during the summer of 2022.
With the lifting of administrative brakes, the rise in energy prices and ecological awareness, the city of Nice has noted “a very significant increase in requests for installations” for a month.
And to support “his constituents” in this energy transition, the president of the metropolis announced “redirecting” aid for the purchase of an electric vehicle towards “other low-carbon energy sources such as solar”.
The amount of this new aid will be “adopted at a next metropolitan council”, specified the metropolis.
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