InvestigationProducing their own electricity has long made them look crazy. But faced with the increase in the price of energy, the inhabitants of autonomous houses are now the envy. Their sober way of life, which appeals to 100,000 households in France, is gaining ground, even in the city.
The Richarts live in rare luxury. That of paying nothing, or almost, for the energy available to their comfortable house in Prunet, very close to Aurillac (Cantal). The living room on the ground floor is bathed in a gentle atmosphere, on this cold and damp April morning. Computers are on, math problems are being solved on a coffee table next to the sofa, while lunch is simmering. Bénédicte and Rémi Richart come and go between the kitchen area and their three boys, aged 6 to 14.
“Visitors tell us: ‘Your way of life, in fact, it’s accessible'”, said smiling the mother, once a school teacher. Sun, wind and wood provide the kilowatts and heat needed for these 200 square meters and outbuildings, with for all bills a monthly subscription of 20 euros to the green electricity supplier Enercoop and 200 euros annually of logs soon to be eliminated by the purchase of a small piece of forest.
It was in 2004 that Rémi Richart took the path of autonomy, disgusted with “money brewed without ethics”. Then a computer scientist, this quiet stilt with azure and polar eyes assorted resigned from the banking world, immersed himself in unpleasant readings on the state of the planet, and came out of it convinced of the coming collapse. So he trained in the installation of solar panels then, as a family, launched the ecological renovation of an old farmhouse that he thought in an “eco-resilient island”. Attention ! “Not in survivalist self-sufficiency. In sharing and mutual aid, at the village level. »
Technology, resourcefulness and sobriety
Rémi Richart seriously insulates the building, using clay, hemp and cork. He recovers for three pennies thermal and photovoltaic solar panels that were too quickly discarded, which he installs on the roof of the barn, facing south, as well as a small wind turbine. A fleet of forty batteries (“at 9,000 euros the whole, in nickel-iron, low-polluting”, he specifies) completes the device, as well as the boilers and wood stove, the mass stove, the home-made solar oven… Technology, resourcefulness and sobriety combine, making connection to the electricity network a useless wheel so far rescue.
” It’s sunny ? The batteries are full, I can bake my bread in an electric oven rather than a wood oven” – Rémi Richart
And our host to open, at the north end of the living room, the doors of the natural refrigerator which, in winter, replaces the electric one: a large cupboard built into the wall, cooled by the outside air. “It looks like the old pantries, he admits, extra insulation. » On nearby shelves are stored fruits and vegetables in jars, dried or lactofermented: the freezer is too greedy in electricity. As well as the toaster or the chainsaw, reserved for sunny days. “As soon as we use renewable energies, habits change quite profoundly, he continues. We reconnect with nature. It’s sunny ? The batteries are full, I can bake my bread in an electric oven rather than a wood oven. »
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