Season 4 Episode 1 - O3C, the control tower for renewables

There’s something I’d like to do with what’s old: make it reusable and beautiful again. People invest energy and materials into it. It’s not the end of their life. We can assemble them, change them, transform them. It’s as if energy is never lost; it’s always being transformed.

Where I grew up, it was in a desert, so I learned early on that water shouldn’t be wasted. The same applied to electricity and all forms of energy. I have a PhD in physics. I’m also an engineer. But still, I’m a dreamer. I believe all physicists are dreamers. When you’re a physicist, you have to imagine things you can’t see. It’s this combination of imagination and manual work that works for me. That’s why I’ve always been drawn to innovation, research, and finding solutions to complex problems.

I manage O3C Montpellier, the control tower for all our renewable assets in France and the overseas territories. O3C monitors around 650 renewable assets, including wind, solar, and hydro. We are the first in line to spot when something happens, like a stop of production. If we are not able to remotely restart the production, then we send a local team on-site to restart it manually.

‘Oui, hello?’ So we go to Plan du Pal wind farm. We have a problem on turbine number 5. The wind sensor is defective. So we have to go and have a look and troubleshoot to see what’s happened.

Since using 03C, we have noted better responsiveness during interventions and also a perfectly noticeable energy gain in production. 03C allows us to intervene on-site with a feeling of security through their action and their continuous management of the power plants. 03C, at first, was just an idea. I had a mission to make it real. And today, it is real. It works. We strive to be the most reactive and responsive. These tiny incremental changes could make a big difference.

03C cut 26 tonnes of CO₂ in 2023. We play our part in the optimization of production, and that’s perhaps the best part of this adventure. I just hope that we will continue to grow, including more assets, more megawatts, and more gigawatts, not only in France but in other countries.

03C was initially a mission given to me. I’m a dreamer, and I like to reach my objectives. So in that kind of way, I’m also a doer.