In the early 1980s, the City of Champigny-sur-Marne decided to use geothermal energy to provide thermal energy to housing and public facilities located in the Bois l'Abbé and Mordacs districts. The operation involved two boreholes at depths of nearly 2,000 metres, allowing the hot water in an aquifer – the DOGGER – to be pumped and then pumped back. The drilling and the power station were located on a plot made available by the Val-de-Marne General Council near the Ferme des Bordes in the town of Chennevières-sur-Marne. Through a pump immersed in the production well, the hot water is extracted at a temperature of 76°C and a flow rate of 350 m3/h and then injected at about 40°C into the second well. The available power is of the order of 12 MWth. This energy is distributed through a network of 9 km of underground pipelines to the 41 substations located in the boiler rooms of the buildings. In order to strengthen the production tools, it was decided in 1999 to install three gas engines in the geothermal power plant providing additional thermal power to the urban grid and electricity to the EDF grid (cogeneration motors). A third well was completed in 2012; the existing doublet was transformed into a triplet. Today, the network supplies more than 75% of its customers with heat from renewable energy sources.
Access: The rue des bordes overlooks the N4 in Chennevières near the Franprix warehouses. The power station is at the end of the street after the intercommunal pool. Bus stops: Line 208 b - Stop Lycée Champlain Line 308 - Stop Champlain Pagnol