MEUNG-SUR-LOIRE, France — Inside his French
chateau on the riverbanks of the Loire, Xavier Leleve dreads to find out how
much it will cost to heat the 12th-century building this winter.
اضافة اعلان
Energy bills in France are expected to soar compared
to last year, partly as a result of a hike in gas prices following the
Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The prospect is particularly worrying owners and
directors of large historical buildings dotted along the Loire.
Usually, Leleve pays 15,000 to 20,000 euros ($14,800
to $19,700) in heating, electricity, and gas each winter to keep the
Meung-sur-Loire castle up and running.
But this year, “it’ll be five to ten times more
expensive. You simply can’t start spending that much on energy”, he said. It
would divert funds from other projects, including the much-needed conservation
of some parts of the listed building.
In a wing of the castle closed off to the public, he
pointed to the windows. Some looked in bad shape, with duct tape covering some
wooden frames and barely keeping out the outside cold. Other windows were brand
new, put in place after long discussions with the regional cultural authority
on what they should look like to best respect the castle’s original aesthetics.
“A window costs around 10,000 euros and we have 148
of them, so you can imagine how much the window budget is,” said Leleve.
‘Bare minimum’
An hour’s drive away down
the river, Charles-Antoine de Vibraye has decided the best course of action to
keep his huge family home heated this winter is to do nothing at all.
The Cheverny chateau, which inspired Captain
Haddock’s family estate in “The Adventures of Tintin”, has belonged to the same
family for six centuries, its website says.
Today, some of the family still live in one wing of
the stately home, but the rest of the building and its grounds include a
restaurant and a Tintin exhibition and are open to paying visitors.
De Vibraye says the business — one of the most
visited
Loire Valley castles — is successful enough for the family to be able
to afford the extra cost of the 30,000 to 40,000 litres of heating oil needed
each year. He does not plan to increase the building’s insulation either.
He said two-thirds of the building was heated,
“especially in the rooms that people visit and where there is historical
furniture”.
New sawmill
A little further south, four
large logs burn in the chimney at the bottom of a sweeping staircase in the
state-owned Chateau of Chambord, the only source of heat for visitors.
But its offices, shops, and some 40 houses on its
estate are heated.
“The budget has doubled in two years. We’ve gone
from 260,000 euros to more than 600,000 in the budget for 2023,” said Jean
d’Haussonville, the director of the surrounding estate.
The castle, one
of several on the section of the Loire Valley listed as a
UNESCO World Heritage
site, usually works with an annual budget of 30 million euros a year. Of that,
the energy bill is now expected to be equivalent to the cost of two temporary
exhibitions and a festival, he said.
D’Haussonville said that had sparked serious thought
about how to transition to alternative sources of energy, for example setting
up solar panels on its hangars.
In the coming months, management will also build a
sawmill in the chateau’s 50-square-kilometer (19-square-mile) forest, which
could see its wood used for heating in the long run.
Until then, managers are hoping a new IT system
might help avoid unnecessary expenses and are continuing a conversion to LED
lights.
“It’s a program that allows you, for example, to
turn off lights when there’s no one in a room, and to reduce its temperature to
just eight degrees Celsius at night,” d’Haussonville said.
He said they planned, this way, to have reduced
their energy consumption by at least 10 percent by next year.
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