Case Study: Buses powered by the biogas produced by a sewage plant - Lille, France

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Synopsis

The CUDL (Urban Community of Lille) is a public intermunicipal co-operation body that gathers 87 local authorities from the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Region. Its scope of competencies includes the provision of services and amenities to the urban community in the following areas: town-planning, road infrastructure, mobility and parking facilities, urban transport systems for passengers. The Urban Community is home to slightly over 1 million inhabitants. The future mobility policy of the Urban Community is determined by the objectives specified in the town-planning and land-use master plan. Priority is given to public transport under the following conditions:

• development of existing transport facilities (train, underground, tramway),
• preferential urban development in those areas serviced by such transport facilities.

The Urban Mobility Plan (Plan de Déplacements Urbains, PDU), adopted by the Urban Community Council on 14 March 1997, set the objective of promoting less polluting energy sources for private cars as well as for public transport systems and goods transportation. The CUDL responsibilities include looking after the public urban transport network and managing several waste water treatment plants which, for some of them, produce a gas with a high methane content as a result of sludge treatment. By the end of 1990, the CUDL launched a project, the first of its kind in Europe, to provide an energy use to this local renewable source. The aim of this experimental project was to use the biogas produced by the Marquette sewage plant, in the suburbs of Lille, to power urban transport buses. In 1990, 80% of the 15,000 m³ of biogas produced on a daily basis by the waste water treatment plant (i.e. the equivalent of 6,000 litres of petrol every day) was used internally to supply the treatment plant with heat and power and the remaining was burnt off. To provide an alternative option to wasting the remaining 3,000 m³, the CUDL decided to clean them to obtain a daily volume of 1,200 m³ of biogas usable as fuel in public transport vehicles.

Target groups: all citizens
Fields: public transport

This case study is one of 175 projects from the Smile Project Local Experiences Database listed on this website.

To find similar reports, click on a keyword below:
Biogas : Biomass & Bioenergy : Citizens : Energy from Waste : Gas : Mobility Management : Public Transport : Renewable Energy Sources & Systems : SMILE Project : Sustainable Transport : Urban Transport

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Lille Métropole - Communauté Urbaine