Entries from November 2008 ↓

On the Mauritian scene of grocery stores, in the span of 4 years, WAY group has forged a prominent position. Why and How? It is worthy to note that the Brand WAY is local, coined and created for the purpose. Since, it has made his way. In four years the total turnover of the group should attain 2.6 billion rupees with a rate of growth of 20% per annum. WAY group has 13 outlets for the time being and more stores will be branded WAY in the coming future.

What binds the group of supermarkets? What drives their success?

Originally in 2004, a group of nine retail outlets decided to create an independent buying force and more importantly to create a Brand with common shared values which are recognised by its clients.

What are the distinctive WAY values and offerings?

1. Customer Proximity. In all stores, WAY believes that their customers are their reason to exist. WAY are in proximity of their customers.

2. Effective Service and range of products. WAY offer effective service and a range of products to suit the needs of their customs.

3. Value for money Pricing. Through their bulk buying and collective negotiations with suppliers, WAY provides value for money pricing.

Through these 3 WAY values statements are deployed strategies and action plans that enable the store operators to live and deliver continuously  the promises that they make to their ‘reasons to exist’ customers.We shall  learn later of the strategies and action plans on a new posting.

No customers: No WAY.

I have taken the time to listen and read on President Elect Obama on his first interview after his election on CBS last night with Steve Kroft. I have extracted some of the issues that I found important: The economy, the financial system; closure of Guantanamo , the use of torture; national security; and finally to free himself from ideology and get best workable solutions where they are available.

Mr. Obama: I think it’s a top priority. I think that we have to restore a sense of trust, transparency, openness in our financial system. And keep in mind that the deregulation process, it wasn’t just one party. I think there’s a lot of blame to spread around.

But, hopefully, everybody’s learned their lesson. And the answer is not heavy-handed regulations that crush the entrepreneurial spirit and risk taking of American capitalism. That’s what’s made our economy great. But it is to restore a sense of balance.

His first legislative goal will be to get Congress to pass an economic stimulus package that he hopes will create jobs and put money in the pockets of ordinary citizens, construction programs to shore up the nation’s creaky infrastructure, a tax cut for the middle class and his first initiatives on health care. But some things he can do with the stroke of a pen.

Mr. Obama: Yes. I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that. I have said repeatedly that America doesn’t torture. And I’m gonna make sure that we don’t torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world.

Mr. Obama: Well, I’ve said during the campaign, and I’ve stuck to this commitment, that as soon as I take office, I will call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my national security apparatus, and we will start executing a plan that draws down our troops. Particularly in light of the problems that we’re having in Afghanistan, which has continued to worsen. We’ve got to shore up those efforts.

Kroft: Where does capturing or killing Osama bin Laden fall?

Mr. Obama: I think it is a top priority for us to stamp out al Qaeda once and for all. And I think capturing or killing bin Laden is a critical aspect of stamping out al Qaeda. He is not just a symbol, he’s also the operational leader of an organization that is planning attacks against US targets.

Mr. Obama: Two points I’d make on this. Number one, although there are some parallels to the problems that we’re seeing now and what we say back in the ’30s, no period is exactly the same. For us to simply recreate what existed back in the ’30s in the 21st century, I think would be missing the boat. We’ve gotta come up with solutions that are true to our times and true to this moment. And that’s gonna be our job. I think the basic principle that government has a role to play in kick starting an economy that has ground to a halt is sound.

I think our basic principle that this is a free market system and that that has worked for us, that it creates innovation and risk taking, I think that’s a principle that we’ve gotta hold to as well. But what I don’t wanna do is get bottled up in a lot of ideology and is this conservative or liberal. My interest is finding something that works.

And whether it’s coming from FDR or it’s coming from Ronald Reagan, if the idea is right for the times then we’re gonna apply it. And

Dans notre paroisse à Beau Bassin, Sacré Cœur, nous avons assisté à une messe du Samedi soir, très spéciale. La célébration été animée par les couples et pour les couples. C’était une invitation à tous les couples de l’assistance de renouveler leurs vœux de mariage.

Des témoignages des couples sur leur vie de mariage, leurs joies, difficultés, angoisses et espérances ont rendu vivant la messe et ont mis en exergue la vie de couple dans la foi.

Apres la lecture de l’Evangile, un couple relata leur vie de mariés à la lumière du texte du jour. Le couple fit une relecture de leur vie en analysant comment ils fructifient leurs talents. C’est bien en faisant valoir ses talents, en les mettant en œuvre que l’on les fructifie. En les semant, en les moissonnant, en les déployant que les talents rapportent des fruits. Les enfouir en les cachant sois par peur, sois par l’égoïsme ne fais que de les rendre improductif. Par l’ouverture aux autres, par des échanges entre couples, par la générosité offerte, le couple arrive à rendre fécond leurs talents.

A l’image du sarment qui reste accrocher à la vigne, les talents reçus, qui sont reconnus comme dons divins et qui restent accrocher à sa source Divine, seront alimentés de vie par sa sève Divine, source permanente de vie. Ils nous restent de prendre conscient de notre Seigneur Dieu notre créateur ; de nous souvenir que tout viens de Lui ; qu’Il est notre source en toutes circonstances ; et de s’en abreuver de sa source quotidiennement.

Merci Seigneur pour cette belle messe et je te demande Seigneur de bénir ces couples.

Dave Durand discusses the 4 wheels of motivation. To build sustained results he reckons : leaders should set mutually agreed goals, instill confidence & trust, give support the team, and  offer reward & recognise.

( Click on the image to enlarge) I have produced a mind map which captured my reading.

At the meeting when I addressed the bunch of business leaders this week, I insisted on the importance of communication. It was item4 on my list of hi- 5. ‘Seek first to understand than to be understood’, Stephen Covey used this very catch phrase to introduce communication in his widely read book, ‘the 7 habits of highly effective people’.

I had the chance of having read and studied the Covey Leadership literature when I was being trained in Utah as a certified trainer. Having shared the material so often, with the number of participants of  the subsequent Covey Leadership seminars, the principles, through repetition, have sunk in me. Yet another example that ‘through giving one recieves’.

Some tips on communication from Dianna Booher, the 10 C’s of communication:

Information is not communication. Posting announcements, holding teleconferences, or scheduling meetings is not substantive communication.

Poor communication! We hear this complaint often. The problem? Information is not communication. Posting announcements, holding teleconferences, or scheduling meetings is not substantive communication. These 10 strategies will help you deliver a message that informs and encourages others while gaining buy-in:

1. Be Correct. Tell it like it is. From the C-suite to the mailroom, truth-telling is key to productivity. If you missed your numbers, say so. If you made a mistake, admit it. Be known as a person who speaks the truth. There are easy answers. And then there are truthful, more difficult answers. Your power as a communicator often depends on your choice between the two.

2. Be Complete. Don’t get so busy analyzing, solving problems, questioning, coordinating, deciding, and delegating that you fail to communicate what’s going on to those on the sidelines. To make good decisions and take appropriate action, people need complete information. Great leaders give people the why’s, what’s, and how’s.

3. Be Clear. Be specific. Separate facts from opinions. Verify assumptions. Vague generalities create confusion. Speak and write in simple, plain language. Muddling information creates a sense of phoniness, insincerity, or intimidation. Purposeful evasion—where harmony is valued above honesty—destroys trust, erodes morale, and lowers productivity. In such cultures, everyone gets along, goes along —and sinks together. Face-saving is a poor substitute for problem solving.

4. Be Consistent. A manager hears, “The company is not doing well. Freeze wages.” Then she sees construction crews remodeling the executive dining room. Customers, colleagues, and employees experience disenchantment when they see inconsistencies in the workplace. You can’t not communicate—by words, action, or silence. You communicate by the policies you enforce and ignore, by the behavior you reward and penalize, and by the quality of the products and services you advertise and actually deliver.

5. Be Credible. Consider the look, language, likeability factor, character, and competence. People often judge your credibility by your appearance (dress, grooming, movement, gestures, facial expression, posture, walk). When you speak, they judge your ability to think on your feet and express yourself. People tend to trust people they like.

6. Be Concerned. Concern connects people. In whatever situation—from product recall to layoffs to employee illness to accident victims to stressed colleagues—there’s great power in communicating your concern. When logic causes a lapse in the relationship, emotion closes the gap.

7. Be Connected. Leaders who show they care about people as individuals—not as employees, suppliers, or customers—make a connection. Those who don’t fail to communicate, and lose employees and customers.

8. Be Current. Speed is the new measure of quality. No one wants to wait days to hear the latest big news. Speed is essential in bringing scattered work groups up-to-date on new projects, diffusing rumors, and maintaining morale.

9. Be Competent. Ensure your communication demonstrates competence. People hear what you say or see what you write about your work. Often they judge your competence by what you communicate—your reputation with customers or colleagues often rests on a single interaction.

10. Be Circular. Ask, “Who else needs to know?” when there’s a change of plans or when new ideas surface. Publicizing your point, encouraging feedback, facilitating conversations across functions are just a few ways to be circular in your communication.

Communication is the most critical component of great customer service, the biggest challenge leaders experience in times of change and upheaval, the most frequent reason top talent joins a new team, and the most frequent complaint employees cite as their reason for leaving.

How well you communicate dictates how well you do as a leader.

Yesterday, the cousins and friends of Florise flocked to church to attend a special mass celebrated for her. The 6 pm mass coincided with the burial ceremony which was held almost at the same time in London. I could not stop myself from thinking that there was a great communion of spirit between Florise’s family, the cousins in London , the friends and relatives gathered in Roche Brunes and the whole assembly of the parents who are ahead of us in the heavenly abode. I image from the perspective of the timeless world, where we would have become omniscience in our Lord, it would be a wonderful scene and feeling seeing this wonderful communion.

Florise,I cherished the delightful time we had together, particularly the heart to heart discussions we had during my  past visits to London.  Your great heart and joy de vivre will forever be engraved in my memory.You have been a great person, a  wonderful cousin,faithful wife and mother but above all a christian who has suffered from dutifully accepting your fate. I admire your will power and persevrance,when at a late age you undertook to go back to your studies through the open university courses and your dedication to the under priviledged and service to the needy through your work.

And this morning on opening my mail, I have been given the Pope teachings on our life after life.

Farewell Florise..Adieu ma cousine….

The Pope said this today when he dedicated the weekly general audience to another instalment in his ongoing reflection on the life and theology of St. Paul.

After a consideration of how the Apostle’s interior freedom hinged on his faith in the resurrection of the dead to life in Christ, the Holy Father considered what the saint’s teaching encourages for Christians of the 21st century.

“The first attitude [for Christians],” he said, “is the certainty that Jesus has risen, is with the Father, and because of that, is with us forever. […] Because of this, we are secure and free of fear. This was an essential effect of Christian preaching. Fear of spirits and gods was spread throughout the entire ancient world. And today as well, missionaries find — together with so many good elements in natural religions — the fear of spirits and the ill-fated powers that threaten us. Christ is alive; he has overcome death and has overcome all these powers. With this certainty, with this freedom, with this joy, we live. This is the first element of our living directed to the future.”

The second attitude for faith-filled Christians is the certainty that Christ “is with me,” the Pontiff continued.

“And that in Christ the future world has already begun — this also gives the certainty of hope,” he said. “The future is not a darkness in which no one gets one’s bearings. It is not like that. Without Christ, also for the world today, the future is dark; there is fear of the future — a lot of fear of the future. The Christian knows that the light of Christ is stronger and because of this, lives in a hope that is not vague, in a hope that gives certainty and courage to face the future.”

But this certainty, Benedict XVI affirmed in noting the third attitude, in no way justifies an escape from responsibilities in the present life.

“We don’t live as if good and evil were the same, because God only can be merciful,” he explained. “This would be a deceit. In truth, we live with a great responsibility. We have talents, we have to work so this world opens itself to Christ, so that it is renewed. But even working and knowing in our responsibility that God is a true judge, we are also sure that he is a good judge. We know his face — the face of the risen Christ, of Christ crucified for us. Therefore we can we sure of his goodness and continue forward with great courage.”

Praying for the end

The Pope concluded the audience address with a reflection on a prayer that Paul taught: “Maranà, thà, which literally means, ‘Our Lord, come!'”

“Can we also pray like this?” the Holy Father asked. “It seems to me that for us today, in our lives, in our world, it is difficult to sincerely pray so that this world perishes, so that the New Jerusalem comes, so that the final judgment and Christ the judge come.”

But, he contended, there is a way in which modern Christians can join with their first predecessors in saying “Come, Lord Jesus.”

“Certainly, we don’t want the end of the world to come now,” the Bishop of Rome said. “But, on the other hand, we want this unjust world to end. We also want the world to be deeply changed, the civilization of love to begin, [we want] a world of justice and peace, without violence, without hunger, to arrive. We all want this — and how can it happen without the presence of Christ? Without the presence of Christ, a just and renewed world will never really arrive.”

Therefore, the Pope added, “though in another way, totally and deeply, we too can and should say, with great urgency and in the circumstances of our time, Come, Lord! Come to your world, in the way that you know.

“Come where there is injustice and violence. Come to the refugee camps, in Darfur and in North Kivu, in so many places in the world. Come where drugs dominate. Come, too, among those rich people who have forgotten you and who live only for themselves. Come where you are not known.

“Come to your world and renew the world of today.”

The leaders’ role is to lead and not to manage. This was the main message I had last night, when addressing the group of Leaders at a seminar organised by Team Synthesis. I gave them a 5 high lecture. The steps were: 1.Begin with the end in mind, 2. Vision Mission Action, 3.Leading is not managing, 4. Communication, and 5. Renewal.

I felt quite pleased after my presentation and thought that I have delivered the right message. However I am looking forward to receiving the feedback from the group.

1. Managing instead of leading.

I was curious what Ron Potter, my friend and the president of Team Leadership Culture, would say are the top three mistakes most leaders make. After all, he has spent the last twelve years of his professional life consulting with top leaders of national and international organizations helping them recognize and correct their mistakes.

“Managing has more to do with directing day-to-day tasks, whereas leading has more to do with casting a vision, goal setting, and motivation.”

When a leader spends more time managing than leading, morale suffers among the troops. Most people would prefer a goal to shoot for and some freedom to figure out how to reach that goal. “We all crave at least a partial sense of control,” Ron said.

In a study several years ago, two teams of leaders were given a difficult problem to solve. The complex problem involved mental gymnastics, difficult decisions, and intense concentration. Both teams participated in the project in a room where distracting sounds were piped in through speakers. The music, noise, and voices were enough to drive you to distraction. Which, of course, was the point.

Team A couldn’t do anything about the distracting sounds. They just had to put up with them. Team B was told that by pushing a button they could silence the distractions for five minutes. The only catch was that they could only use the button once each hour. Each team was then scored on various phases of their group task.

Not too surprisingly, Team B consistently outscored Team A. The kicker is, Team B never pushed the button. Team B at least thought they had control over their environment. Just knowing that they had a little freedom within their boundaries boosted their confidence level.

When leaders micromanage, they take away that sense of control vital to team dynamics and problem-solving. Former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower summed this up when he said, “Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.”

2. Mistaking individual loyalty for team building.

Have you seen that little desk toy that has several steel balls hanging from a crossbeam, all in a row? If you pull one of the balls away from the others and let it go, when it strikes the row of spheres the one on the opposite end swings away from the rest in direct response to the force of the first ball. It’s called “Newton’s Cradle.”

The next mistake is a bit more subtle and difficult to detect. Ron calls it, “The Newton’s Cradle approach to leadership.”

Let’s say that you are the person at the top of the leadership chain in your organization. You are the crossbeam. Those steel spheres hanging beneath the crossbeam are the people who work closely with you. The plastic connectors are the individual relationships you make with those people.

You, the leader, pull one of your team members away from the others and get him pumped up about a change that needs to be made. That’s like pulling one of the steel balls and holding it there. Then when you let him go, you expect him to return to the rest of the team, where they will all function with superb team dynamics, solving the current problems, achieving team goals, and making changes.

Ron explained what really happens. “The leader lets that team member go, and he just bangs against the other team member closest to him, and that one bangs quickly into the team member next to him, and so on. So all that really happens is that this one team member bangs into the others, and they swing back and forth, bumping into each other.”

We shouldn’t neglect the individual relationships with those who work closely with us. We also can’t miss the important steps necessary to putting those people together in team situations where they learn what it means to work together.

3. Failing to apply what motivates us.

“What motivates you?” Ron asked. “The ability to create? The freedom to apply what you know in order to solve problems? The thrill of a new challenge? Ask most leaders what motivates them and those items will surface. But when we get our jobs down to a science and there are no new challenges, we get bored or lose interest.”

A leader may know what motivates him, but he forgets that the same things motivate those who work for him.

We want our people to be competent so that everything always runs smoothly. But when we lock people into the routine of sameness, we wind up killing their motivation. When we stretch people into new areas of challenges, we know they are going to make mistakes. But when we keep them “safe,” we take the motivational wind out of their sails.

It means we have to risk other people’s failure. It means we have to bite our lips and let some people toddle out into the unknown world. Yet they’ll thank you for allowing them to tackle a new challenge, even if they stumble a few times.

Like a parent who prays harder when the teenager begins to drive, a leader must accept that new challenges are frightening to us but freeing to others.

Hearing this assessment of the top three mistakes leaders make, I recalled my first big mistake in leadership: failure to ask where I was making mistakes.

I need to discover where I am guilty of managing more than leading. I need to build into my leadership training calendar specific times to work on team building. And I need to motivate my leadership team by allowing them to tackle new challenges. Most of all, I need to remain courageous enough to keep asking what mistakes I’m making.

I borrowed this article from: Clark Cothern is pastor of Living Waters Community Church in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Miriam Makeba today passed away in Italy. Who does not know her or at least heard of this great Lady of Africa who fought for years for the freedom of her country through her voice?

She discovered that her South African passport was revoked when she tried to return there in 1960 for her mother’s funeral. In 1963, after testifying against Apartheid before the United Nations, her South African citizenship and her right to return to the country were revoked. She has had nine passports, and was granted honorary citizenship of ten countries.

Nelson Mandela persuaded her to return to South Africa in 1990. In the fall of 1991, she made a guest appearance in an episode of The Cosby Show, entitled “Olivia Comes Out Of The Closet”. In 1992 she starred in the film Sarafina!, about the 1976 Soweto youth uprisings, as the title character’s mother, “Angelina.” She also took part in the 2002 documentary Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony where she and others recalled the days of Apartheid.

The world, particularly the world of music should mourn the loss of a great artist and salute the life of a great African who spent her time and energy for great causes.

La lecture de l’épitre aux Thessaloniciens (1Th 4 13-18) à la messe, ce matin m’a renforcé ma foi. Un moment de doute s’était installé chez moi, après avoir reçu les nouvelles de la mort soudaine de ma cousine Florise quelques jours auparavant. Pourquoi cette mort subite ? Elle, la courageuse qui s’était fixé l’objectif de soulager son fils atteint de cancer, et de soigner son vieux époux malade depuis quelques années. Le Seigneur a opté pour son heure du départ contre toute attente. Elle qui vient de subir une intervention chirurgicale réussie et était en traitement d’un cancer en prévention.

Merci pour Ta réponse. Je crois que Jésus est mort et qu’il est ressuscité, Dieu ramènera par Jésus avec lui ceux qui sont morts. Florise ma cousine est du lot. Je prie a sa famille d’être consolée.

Paru sur le journal LA CROIX avril 2008

Et quid de Maurice ? Qui bénéfice du même ensoleillement  que La Réunion ?

Le bon élève de l’outre-mer veut expérimenter toutes les alternatives aux énergies fossiles pour atteindre 50 % d’autonomie électrique et la région rêve même d’une indépendance à 100 %

La Réunion ? « Un petit laboratoire des problèmes du monde », affirme son président de région, Paul Vergès. Cette île paradisiaque habitée depuis trois cent cinquante ans, cet éruptif lopin de terre de l’océan Indien d’une superficie inférieure au tiers de la Corse, est un concentré des soubresauts de la planète.

L’île est particulièrement exposée à la pression démographique : les habitants, 250 000 au sortir de la guerre, sont aujourd’hui 800 000 et atteindront le million dans moins de vingt ans. Elle est spécialement menacée par le réchauffement climatique en raison des prévisions de violence accrue des cyclones. Et sévèrement chahutée par la mondialisation : 2013 sonnera le glas du soutien à la filière sucre, base de l’économie locale, et « les bateaux lancés sur les autoroutes maritimes mondiales feront de moins en moins le crochet par l’île », pronostique Paul Vergès.

Avec sa population cosmopolite de descendants de marins et colons européens, d’anciens esclaves africains et de migrants venus d’Inde et de Chine, le métissage biologique et culturel de la Réunion est tel que « nous sommes tous des descendants d’étrangers et d’immigrés », poursuit le président de la région, faisant de l’île le reflet avant-gardiste de l’Europe multiethnique et multireligieuse de demain.

Une “écolonomie” à base de “négawatts”

Ainsi ce « laboratoire des problèmes du monde » peut être, plus qu’une terre de lamentation, un lieu d’expérimentation. Et La Réunion, qui a la réputation d’être le bon élève de l’outre-mer, entend jouer à fond son rôle de premier de la classe.

Son ambition ? Prouver sur ce territoire de 2 500 km2 que l’on peut éradiquer les émissions de CO2 et viser l’indépendance électrique grâce aux énergies renouvelables. Une obsession pour Paul Vergès qui avait présenté son projet d’indépendance énergétique de l’île dès 1999 à l’Unesco, mais avait à l’époque été accueilli avec quelque incrédulité.

Aujourd’hui, le gouvernement s’arrime à cette volonté réunionnaise pour faire de l’île la roue d’entraînement du Grenelle de l’environnement dans les DOM et de son objectif de 50 % d’énergies renouvelables outre-mer à l’horizon 2020.
« Paul Vergès est la première des énergies renouvelables à La Réunion », reconnaît André Antolini qui voue une « immense gratitude aux DOM ». « Les DOM, poursuit le président du Syndicat des énergies renouvelables, ont été de longues années un sanctuaire qui a permis le sauvetage de l’industrie française des énergies renouvelables. »

La Réunion bruit de cette nouvelle « écolonomie » ; un terme que le secrétaire d’État chargé de l’outre-mer, Yves Jégo, a repris à son compte lors de sa visite à La Réunion fin mars. Cette économie du développement durable est basée, pour l’électricité, sur la production de « négawatts » – parce que les meilleurs des watts sont ceux que l’on ne consomme pas – et sur la production de mégawatts d’origine renouvelable : éolien, solaire, biomasse et des projets tous azimuts en géothermie, énergie marine, stockage de l’électricité…

EDF vend de l’électricité à perte

« La seule centrale qui me fait gagner de l’argent, c’est la centrale à négawatts », confirme Jean-Louis Barbet, chef du pôle gestion du système électrique d’EDF à la Réunion. Car EDF vend l’électricité lourdement à perte sur l’île. « Un mégawattheure est vendu 90 €. Or, son coût de production s’élève à 145 € », explique-t-il. Chaque consommateur français finance la différence sur sa facture, au travers de la contribution au service public de l’électricité (CSPE). Donc, EDF a investi dans cette centrale à « négawatts » en aidant à la diffusion de 1,2 milliond’ampoules lampes basse consommation. « On a gagné 10 mégawatts », comptabilise le gestionnaire.

Autres grands économiseurs d’électricité : les 81 000 chauffe-eau solaires (CES) installés sur les toits – 10 000 de plus chaque année – pour un parc de 230 000 logements. « On a ainsi évité la construction d’une centrale thermique de 40 mégawatts », argumente Sylvain Viellepeau, directeur de Giordano, l’entreprise qui alimente 40 % du marché réunionnais des CES.

Mais le fleuron, ce sont les 400 m2 de modules solaires thermiques à usage industriel installés sur les toits des abattoirs Sicabat, à Saint-Pierre, qui traitent 12 000 tonnes de porc par an. « La plus grande installation thermique d’Europe », selon Sylvain Viellepeau, permet de porter chaque jour 60 000 litres d’eau à 65 °C pour nettoyer les 13 000 m2 de l’usine. Cette dernière a ainsi pu renoncer à acheter une nouvelle chaudière au fioul et économise 144 tonnes de CO2 par an.

Convaincue par l’intérêt du solaire, l’entreprise a loué 6 000 m2 de toit pour installer une centrale photovoltaïque qui sera opérationnelle début 2009. « L’engouement pour le solaire a déclenché une spéculation sur les toits : les toits sont préemptés par des baux de location dans le but d’y installer à terme des panneaux solaires », reconnaît Bertrand Dellinger, directeur général de BP Solar à la Réunion, l’entreprise qui avait, de manière pionnière, participé à l’électrification solaire des habitations de la zone montagneuse enclavée du cirque de Mafate, non raccordée au réseau électrique.

Les lycées dans la course

La chasse aux toits a bel et bien démarré. Les 7 500 panneaux d’une puissance de 1,25 mégawatt crête (MWc) installés sur les 20 000 m2 de toiture d’une plate-forme logistique au Port fonctionneront le mois prochain. Sur la même commune du Port, qui s’est proclamée « ville solaire » lors d’une délibération du conseil municipal en décembre dernier, 10 000 panneaux solaires sont en cours d’installation sur les toits d’une centrale d’achats. Les 42 lycées de l’île sont dans la course : sept ont déjà leurs toits couverts, cinq sont en cours d’installation, les autres doivent suivre. Avec toujours en ligne de mire l’excellent gisement solaire de l’île, exploitable toute l’année, mais aussi la lourde contrainte du risque cyclonique qui impose d’arrimer les installations au toit ou au sol.

Le centre d’enfouissement technique de Sainte-Suzanne fait visiter son ancienne décharge. Les quatre hectares de terre ont été réhabilités en unité de production de biogaz (issu de la méthanisation des déchets) et en centrale solaire, une autre première mondiale à la Réunion. « Nous avons récupéré les anciens voussoirs d’un tunnelier (les morceaux de voûte de tunnel en béton) qui pèsent 1,2 tonne à l’unité pour lester nos modules solaires au sol afin qu’ils résistent à des rafales de vent de 250 km/h », explique Alain Orriols, directeur général de SCE, Société de conversion d’énergie.

C’est aussi à cause des cyclones que seules poussent sur l’île les éoliennes Vergnet, du nom de leur inventeur, Marc Vergnet (1). Ces éoliennes bipales à mât haubané et articulé à la base sont rabattables au sol en trois quarts d’heure et sont, de ce fait, les seules de la planète à résister aux cyclones. Elles brassent nonchalamment le vent sur les hauteurs de Sainte-Suzanne. « Nous sommes une commune moderne à la campagne », revendique Maurice Gironcel, maire de Sainte-Suzanne, avec à ses pieds la décharge devenue centrale électrique et au-dessus de sa tête le parc Aérowatt et ses éoliennes Vergnet qui projette de s’orienter vers un cocktail énergétique : des panneaux solaires au pied des éoliennes et du stockage d’électricité par pompage-turbinage (2).

“Comme si on écopait à la petite cuillère”

Avec ses réalisations, ses projets et ses premières mondiales, la Réunion avance-t-elle vraiment vers l’autonomie électrique ? « C’est comme si l’on écopait à la petite cuillère », confesse Jules Dieudonné, directeur du Prerure, le Programme régional d’exploration et d’exploitation des énergies renouvelables et de l’usage rationnel de l’énergie.

Il fait directement référence à ce que l’on appelle sur l’île « les ravages de la “défisc” », ces programmes immobiliers jouissant de la défiscalisation qui poussent sur l’île sans répondre à la moindre exigence de réglementation thermique.

Quarante mille climatiseurs et 20 000 chauffe-eau électriques sont ainsi importés chaque année… « La Réunion a été historiquement traumatisée par le cyclone dévastateur de 1948. Les toits des maisons ont été emportés, les habitations détruites. De ce jour, l’île a renoncé à l’habitat créole avec ses coursives, ses fenêtres à jalousie et sa ventilation naturelle pour s’orienter massivement vers la construction en béton, les toitures terrasses et les baies vitrées », explique Jean-Claude Futhazar, directeur de l’environnement au conseil régional.

« Dans les bureaux, avec les façades en plein soleil, il fait si chaud qu’on ferme les rideaux, branche la climatisation et allume les lumières puisqu’on est dans le noir en plein jour », s’insurge l’énergéticien Jocelyn Meschenmoser qui participa à la réalisation de « L’Îlette du centre », l’une des rares « opérations de défiscalisation citoyennes », selon l’expression de son architecte Michel Reynaud, soit 300 m2 de bureaux et 66 logements qui ont renoué avec la fraîcheur naturelle et le confort de l’architecture créole au cœur de Saint-Pierre.

Pour sortir de cette hérésie de la construction, la Réunion réclame ce que Paris lui a jusqu’ici toujours refusé, à savoir l’autorisation de faire sa propre révolution énergétique – les DOM n’ayant droit à aucune réglementation thermique –, et table sur les deux projets de loi outre-mer et Grenelle de l’environnement.

Marie VERDIER, à La Réunion