A high mountain guide in Chamonix, the American Zoe Hart is also involved locally through the Mont-Blanc 2.0 association. The aim is to set up an alternative energy production system called "citizen energy".
Zoe Hart has been living in Chamonix for 20 years. Born in the United States in the suburbs of New Jersey, this mountain guide has broadened her skills in environmental protection after obtaining a master's degree in sustainable development and environmental management at Harvard. "I've had this ecological awareness for a long time," she explains. "In my profession, I can see the impact of climate change on melting glaciers, for example. We also feel the changes in temperature more, with a colder winter and a hotter summer. It is also my children who have made me understand how important it is to leave them a better planet. I took them for a walk on the glaciers when they were 2 or 3 years old because we don't know if these natural sites will still be there in the future.
In order to change things on her own scale, Zoe got involved in the association Mont-Blanc 2.0 which aims to set up a project around citizen energy. "The principle of citizen energy is the collective installation of solar panels on the best exposed roofs in the valley, whether they belong to communities, companies or individuals," explains Zoe. Today, one million European citizens are involved in the citizen energy movement built on the model of village power plants. In France, more than 300 citizen renewable energy cooperatives have already seen the light of day. Patagonia (who has been working with Zoe for several years) had highlighted these citizen initiatives in her film "We the Power" unveiled last April and which you can watch below in full.
"Citizen power is a great way to make a long-term impact," adds Zoe. "It decentralizes energy, it allows us to multiply the number of small producers and it avoids having to deal with the big electricity production companies. Unlike some countries like Canada, we have the opportunity in France to sell electricity as a private individual, we must take advantage of this. The advantage is also that there is no need to wait for political decisions to launch such an initiative. It comes directly from the citizens themselves. All this helps to accelerate the energy transition.
"Obviously, it's a process that takes time. At the beginning, we started working with the town of Chamonix, which also wanted to set up this initiative. We worked in parallel with the town hall, but the municipal elections changed things. That's when we decided to set up this Mont-Blanc 2.0 association last September. "
"For the moment, we haven't put any panels on the roofs yet because we are working on the administrative part of the project, which takes a long time to set up. We are all volunteers in the association so we have to find time outside our professional activities, our family... We hope to install the first photovoltaic panels on the roofs in spring. But before that, we have to find the roofs in question, mobilize local savers ready to invest in this project, find suppliers and obtain bank loans. For all these aspects, we are working with Toits Des Cimes which is the name of the citizen cooperative for the production of renewable energy in the Chamonix Valley. "
If the system comes from individuals, companies are also solicited. "For them, it is a profitable investment because in the long term they can earn money by producing their own electricity after having placed these panels on their roofs and by selling the surplus" says Zoé. "But you need a long-term vision because we're talking about a profitability over 15 or 20 years. This is what the Compagnie du Mont-Blanc is studying at the moment to see what opportunities there are to be had. "
If you want to know more about citizen energy, Patagonia offers on its website a page dedicated to this movement. And if you want to get involved on your side, go to here to find out how to join, invest in or create a citizen's renewable energy cooperative.
