Picture: From left to right, Pierre Ducout (President of the Jalle Eau Boude Community of Municipalities), Marie-Laure Cuvelier (Regional Councillor), Guillaume Fournier-Favre (Deputy Managing Director of REXEL France), Stéphane Cassagne (Asset Management Director at ARGAN), Sébastien Saint-Pasteur (Member of Parliament for Gironde).
ARGAN and REXEL officially inaugurated the new sustainable heating system of the logistics centre of
Cestas in the presence of local officials.
ARGAN and REXEL in Cestas: two strong environmental ambitions aligned
- Owned by ARGAN, the asset in Cestas is strategically located at the South of Bordeaux, near the A63 French highway. It has a surface area of 18,000 sq.m and is a shipping centre for B2B clients of Rexel located in the French region of “Aquitaine”: electricians & installers, companies in the building sector, industrial corporations, service providers, as well as local authorities and public infrastructures. The centre stores 25,000 SKUs with D+1 lead times. The Cestas logistics centre is among the most efficient sites in the region and serves as a key component of REXEL’s local supply chain.
- Today, ARGAN and REXEL are taking a new step in their mutual commitment to supporting the transition to green energy. This includes a new heating system that will improve the building’s energy efficiency and generate significant savings.
An innovative solution that combines electric heat pumps and green gas
- The project involves replacing the former gas heating system with a new one that combines electric heat pumps and green gas, as well as installing a Building Management System. This equipment results both in significantly reduced energy consumption and improved monitoring for optimized use of resources.
- This is therefore the outcome of a hybrid solution featuring a “waterfall” system that alternates between electric heat pumps and green gas boilers, ensuring uninterrupted service and enhancing network resilience. Gas is only used when temperatures are very low, supplementing the heat pumps that provide most of the site’s heating.
- The presence of a methanizer near the site and the availability of a green gas supply supported the implementation of this innovative solution. The installation was also designed to be compatible with future hydrogen hybridization.
- Altogether, this new system will help divide the site’s energy consumption by a factor of 7 and CO2 emissions by a factor of 14.
- The works, which lasted for 5 months, were conducted while the site was still operating without interrupting REXEL’s logistics business.
Thomas Moreau
REXEL France’s CEO
The inauguration of this new heating system is fully aligned with our strategy to decarbonize our buildings. We have made significant progress on our scopes 1 and 2 as we have overall reduced our carbon emissions by 30% over three years. This initiative reflects our
commitment to reducing our carbon footprint while improving energy efficiency of our buildings’ infrastructure.
Stéphane Cassagne
Director of ARGAN’s Asset Management
This project is a perfect example of effective collaboration between ARGAN and REXEL, in which expertise and innovation helped deploy a
new efficient, sustainable proposal. REXEL has provided actual added value at each step of the project, from the design phase to its implementation. This guaranteed results that are meeting high expectations for this strategic site. Overall, achievements for this project are part of efforts to reduce our portfolio’s carbon emissions by 50% by 2030.
