In Guyana, the public rapporteur requests the cancellation of the authorization for the EDF power plant

Europe 1 with AFP 11:15 a.m., April 01, 2022, modified at 11:15 a.m., April 01, 2022

The public rapporteur of the Administrative Court of Guyana on Thursday requested the "cancellation" of the environmental authorization granted to EDF for the construction of a controversial power plant by the sea. The public rapporteur estimated that the prefecture of Guyana had " committed an error of assessment" by granting this authorization to EDF in October 2020 for its 120 MW power plant project, in Matoury, in a sector of high ecological value subject to natural risks.

The administrative court of Guyana had been seized by the associations France nature environment (FNE) and Guyane nature environment.

For the public rapporteur, there were "sufficient alternatives", too quickly "dismissed" by the State and EDF, to this land purchased in 2017 by EDF during a 15 million euro transaction with the sugar company and farm in French Guiana, owned by the Seban family, wealthy landowners.

For the rapporteur, these alternatives presented "slightly less unfavorable" natural risks and avoided the construction of a 14-kilometer pipeline to supply imported biodiesel to the planned power plant.

A "controllable risk of blackout"

These "alternative sites simply do not exist", retorted at the hearing the secretary general of state services in Guyana, Mathieu Gatineau.

For EDF's lawyer, Me Steve Hercé, the Larivot plant (Matoury) must be done otherwise in 2024, "we are going into the wall" since the current EDF power plant, dilapidated and polluting, will have to be stopped. end of 2023. "Do we have one or more equivalent means of securing the electricity supply in time?"

pointed to Me Hercé.

A recent study commissioned by the local authority of Guyana (CTG) and financed by the French Development Agency (AFD), consulted by AFP, estimates that "the risk of blackout" in 2024 "is controllable" "without the Larivot" and thanks to the massive deployment of solar energy.

The conclusions of this study are rejected by EDF and the CTG.

On February 10, 2022, the Council of State had canceled a first decision of the judge in chambers of the administrative court of Guyana who had suspended in September the environmental authorization granted to the power plant project.