Fraîcheur de Paris, a jointly-owned company by ENGIE (85%) and RATP (15%), will become the urban cooling network operator for the city of Paris. The 20-year concession will cover the production, storage, transport and distribution of the city’s cooling energy. With a projected turnover of €2.4bn throughout the life of the contract, the network will be extended by 158 km to serve new clients in all Paris ‘arrondissements’ by 2042. This ambitious project forms part of the city’s approach to decarbonisation and adapting to climate change, offering a sustainable and competitive alternative to traditional air-conditioning solutions.
This is an unprecedented project to make the cooling network accessible to as many Parisians as possible. The new network will be extended to include cooling for hospitals, nurseries, schools, nursing homes, etc., covering 300 additional healthcare buildings. The cooling distributed will thus help meet the challenge of protecting the most vulnerable populations in a context of global warming. The service will also be aimed at local shops, establishments open to the public, and – additionally – a few housing units in the residential sector.
The city of Paris cooling network has been running on 100% renewable electricity since 2013 and has been carbon-neutral since 2018. This largest cooling network in Europe will be almost triple in size over next 20 years: 20 new production plants and 10 storage facilities will be built to supply over 3,000 users
