On 13 February, the people of Geneva will be asked to vote on the granting of a monopoly to SIG (Services Industriels Genevois) over the distribution of energy through the structural thermal networks. 

The ASL believes that the energy transition must take account of biodiversity and the landscape, and must give priority to reducing energy consumption and sobriety, as indicated in the Canton of Geneva's Energy Master Plan 2020-2030. 

However, Geneva urgently needs to move away from fossil fuels and turn to renewable and indigenous energy sources. This is the objective of the development of structuring thermal networks, such as the use of energy drawn from: geothermal energy, lake water and heat recovery, in particular via industrial waste heat. 

The GéniLac network, which is currently being expanded, will use water from the lake to cool buildings in summer and provide heating in winter. This project has been subject to several environmental impact studies, which have been reviewed by the ASL. The installation of the sub-lake pipes will have a significant impact on the lake bed, but the compensation measures seem to be commensurate with the damage caused. During use, the thermal impact seems acceptable. On the other hand, the energy benefits of this network are significant and necessary. 

Currently, outside the GéniLac network, any building can create its own lake water pumping installation, even if it is close to the GéniLac network. The ASL believes that, while enormous work is underway to create a large-scale GéniLac network, it is important that this network should be able to serve as many buildings as possible and thus limit the number of small parallel installations as much as possible. A large, well-constructed project will limit the impact during the operating phase and ensure that requirements can be planned and control measures put in place.

Although the ASL has reservations about the granting of a monopoly, as it stands, it considers that granting SIG a monopoly over the structuring thermal networks will make it possible to limit the proliferation of thermal installations in Lake Geneva by requiring connection where the network already exists, for new and renovated buildings. 

In this context, the ASL encourages the people of Geneva to vote YES on 13 February. 

YES : Law Cst 12895 development of structuring thermal networks