The beginnings
One evening in the winter of 1937, the boilers at the Villiers-Saint-Denis hospital (Aisne) stopped working. Léon Dewailly, founder of the company Chauffage Service, intervened immediately. The repairs were so quick and efficient that the hospital director asked for a contract to operate and maintain the system, with a guaranteed temperature.
The first energy performance contract was born!
Today, the hospital is still a Dalkia customer.
From the 1950s to the present day
The number of multi-family dwellings increased, and with it, district heating. The company Chauffage Service experienced full expansion, while another company, Montenay, signed its first contract to manage the heating plant for the city of Tours.
It was a time of alliances: Chauffage Service merged with Compagnie Générale de Chauffe (CGC), an HVAC company that had set up operations in Great Britain and Belgium.
After the oil shocks, innovation was on the rise. Montenay and the GSC positioned themselves on new energy sources (geothermal energy, energy recovery technologies) as well as on heating networks.
In their quest to diversify the energy mix, Montenay and the GSC developed gas to replace fuel oil and coal. They put their first biomass boiler into service.
CGC expands in Eastern Europe. It merges with Esys-Montenay to form the "energy services" division of Générale des Eaux. Cogeneration and renewable energies emerge, as well as new concepts of offers (multiservice, multitechnics...). In 1998, Générale des Eaux became Vivendi. Its "energy services" division was renamed Dalkia.
Dalkia represented the "energy services" business within Vivendi Environnement, which was renamed Veolia Environnement in 2003. EDF gradually acquired a stake in the company. By taking over the activities of EDF's "services division", Dalkia became the leader in energy services in Europe.
New paths are emerging: recovery of heat from data centers, as in Val d'Europe, digitization of maintenance tools and development of remote maintenance, etc. In 2014, Dalkia became a wholly-owned subsidiary of EDF. Between 2015 and 2018, Dalkia integrated EDF entities related to its core business: Verdesis (Dalkia Biogaz), Cesbron (Dalkia Froid Solutions), Optimal Solutions (Dalkia Smart Building), Techsim (Dalkia Air Solutions)... The expansion continues!
