Monday, October 25, 2021

France: transmission system operator publishes study on energy sources by 2050

 French transmission system operator Réseau de transport d'électricité (RTE) has published a strategy with different scenarios on energy consumption in France and the required energy sources for the coming decades until 2050, writes Le Monde:


It is an understatement to say that this work was expected, and that it will be commented on. The national manager of the Electricity Transmission Network (RTE) published on Monday, October 25, the main findings of a vast study aimed at defining the future of the French electricity system. Launched in 2019 at the request of the government, this forward-looking exercise entitled "Energy Futures 2050" sets out six scenarios that are supposed to make it possible to achieve carbon neutrality within thirty years, and therefore to fight against climate change.


For the country's future electricity production, the various trajectories range from a "100% renewable energy" option to another with another 50% nuclear. Each time, RTE, majority-owned by EDF and Caisse des Dépôts, describes the technical feasibility conditions, but also the cost and expected impact for the environment and for society. In addition to this first report of some 600 pages, the full result of the modeling should be made public in early 2022.



Published six months before the presidential election, this study is expected to weigh heavily in the political debate. In the context of an aging nuclear fleet, France, and therefore the contenders for the Elysée Palace, is faced with an important choice: to replace certain end-of-life reactors with new ones, or to bet everything on the development of renewable energies. If most of the candidates have already spoken on their desire to revive, or not, the atomic sector, Emmanuel Macron should take a position in the coming weeks, knowing that the president declared, on October 12, during the presentation of the France 2030 plan, that the country “still needs this technology”, which emits very little carbon dioxide but is contested in particular because of the radioactive waste it generates.


RTE, for its part, hopes to contribute to a debate "as informed and as documented as possible". “There is an urgent need to mobilize and choose an orientation, underlines Xavier Piechaczyk, the chairman of the management board. We are in a race against time to respond to the climate crisis. All the scenarios require considerable investments on which it is time to take an option. "


Each of the six scenarios presented meets two prerequisites. First, to ensure the security of supply to the French electricity system. The model used by RTE simulates the balance between consumption and production every hour of every day and of every year for thirty years, while taking into account meteorological criteria. "Some scenarios are more demanding or more uncertain, but all of them guarantee us exactly the same security of supply as today," Piechaczyk insists.

Then, achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Achieving this goal will require efficiency gains, for example through more efficient computers or refrigerators, or through building renovations. The challenge: to almost halve, in the space of three decades, overall energy consumption to reduce it from around 1,600 terawatt-hours (TWh) to 930 TWh, according to the National Low Carbon Strategy, roadmap government, the new version of which was adopted in 2020 and which must be updated every five years.


But this will also require significant electrification of uses. Today, 63% of the energy consumed in France still comes from fossil fuels, synonymous with CO2 emissions. In order to eventually eliminate oil and gas, thermal vehicles will have to be replaced by electric ones, blast furnaces used in the steel industry by electric furnaces, heating with fuel oil by heat pumps, again electric… Result, l heelectricity would become the majority source of energy in 2050 and represent 55% of the energy mix (compared to 25% today).

“We are facing a double challenge,” sums up Xavier Piechaczyk. The first is to generate more electricity to replace oil and fossil gas. The second is purely French: it will be necessary to replace the production of the second generation nuclear fleet which will have to close for industrial reasons by 2060. "


This is one of the questions that split the most during the discussions prior to the development of the scenarios, in which around a hundred organizations and institutions took part: how much electricity will the French consume in 2050 ? "The consultation gave rise to sometimes violent positions, very polarized on the question of sobriety: for some people, this is obvious, while others reject the principle even in the name of freedoms. individual ”, explains Thomas Veyrenc, Executive Director for Strategy and Foresight at RTE.

The six scenarios presented on Monday are calculated from a "reference" consumption trajectory inspired by the National Low Carbon Strategy. According to this, electricity consumption would amount to 645 TWh in 2050 - compared to an average of almost 475 over the past decade. It takes into account significant gains in energy efficiency but does not imply changes in the lifestyle of the French.

RTE has also studied two other possible consumption trajectories - without, however, at this stage of the work, detailing them in as much detail as the so-called “reference” one. The trajectory of “sobriety” (554 TWh) would imply a proactive policy and societal changes: reduction of individual trips in favor of carpooling, increased use of teleworking, regulation of heating, extension of the lifespan of equipment, etc. The association NegaWatt, which has long defended sobriety, makes more or less the same consumption assumption (530 TWh) in its latest study, unveiled on October 20 - negaWatt, on the other hand, ultimately excludes any recourse to nuclear power after 2045.


The trajectory of a "deep reindustrialisation" (752 TWh, including 87 hydrogen) imagines, on the contrary, a consumption higher than that of reference. As it relocates production that emits carbon dioxide today abroad, this revival of the manufacturing industry would reduce the carbon footprint of French consumption, according to the report. Important clarification: the logic of sobriety and reindustrialisation would not necessarily be antagonistic and could be considered in a complementary way.


This is one of the major lessons of the work: achieving carbon neutrality will in any case require a significant deployment of renewable energies, but five of the six scenarios still attribute a share to nuclear - more than a quarter of electricity production in 2050 in three of them.

RTE has also studied two other possible consumption trajectories - without, however, at this stage of the work, detailing them in as much detail as the so-called “reference” one. The trajectory of “sobriety” (554 TWh) would imply a proactive policy and societal changes: reduction of individual trips in favor of carpooling, increased use of teleworking, regulation of heating, extension of the lifespan of equipment, etc. The association NegaWatt, which has long defended sobriety, makes more or less the same consumption assumption (530 TWh) in its latest study, unveiled on October 20 - negaWatt, on the other hand, ultimately excludes any recourse to nuclear power after 2045.


The trajectory of a "deep reindustrialisation" (752 TWh, including 87 hydrogen) imagines, on the contrary, a consumption higher than that of reference. As it relocates production that emits carbon dioxide today abroad, this revival of the manufacturing industry would reduce the carbon footprint of French consumption, according to the report. Important clarification: the logic of sobriety and reindustrialisation would not necessarily be antagonistic and could be considered in a complementary way.


This is one of the major lessons of the work: achieving carbon neutrality will in any case require a significant deployment of renewable energies, but five of the six scenarios still attribute a share to nuclear - more than a quarter of electricity production in 2050 in three of them.

The most nuclear-powered scenario provides for the commissioning, by 2050, of fourteen high-power reactors (called EPR2), around twenty small modular reactors (SMR), as well as the extension of the service life of current reactors beyond sixty years. However, even in this hypothesis, nuclear power would only provide 50% of the electricity mix (compared to 67% in 2020). The rest would be supplied by 70 gigawatts (GW) of installed photovoltaic capacity (compared to 10 GW today), 43 GW of onshore wind (compared to 17 GW) and 22 GW of offshore wind (non-existent to date).


A mix with 26% nuclear would require multiplying by 11 the development of solar, by 3.3 that of onshore wind, and the commissioning of 45 GW of offshore wind. "In all configurations, it will be necessary to broadly develop renewables, particularly wind power, a mature technology with low production costs, ”explains RTE.


Completely doing without the "new nuclear", that is to say not launching the construction of new plants, would add, on the other hand, "a very strong constraint" on the achievement of carbon neutrality, underlines the report. The pace of development should therefore greatly exceed those observed in France over the past ten years, but also those of the most dynamic European countries, such as Germany for onshore wind power or photovoltaic power, or the United Kingdom for offshore wind. The “100% renewable” scenarios would therefore pose considerable challenges, both in relation to the country's industrial capacities and to the social acceptability of these projects.



From 45 billion euros now needed to produce all the electricity consumed in France, the annualized bill would drop from 59 billion to 80 billion euros by 2060, depending on the hypotheses, for a consumption of 645 TWh. It being understood that France would “save” all oil and gas imports at the same time.


The most expensive scenarios are those with the greatest emphasis on renewable energies. The expenditure to be agreed takes into account production, delivery via transport and distribution networks, but also the need for flexibility (storage, demand management, construction of new back-up plants, etc.). However, the more wind turbines and solar panels there are, the more flexibility will be needed to overcome the intermittence and variability of these energies. Conversely, scenarios with more nuclear power show the lowest full cost.


In any event, however, the report insists, “the carbon neutral electrical system can be achieved at a manageable cost for France”. Excluding inflation, RTE forecasts a median increase of 15% for one megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity. This could remain stable compared to today, in the case of scenarios with nuclear, at around 90 euros per unit. But it could increase by more than 30% in an option with a strong dominance of renewable energies: around 120 euros per MWh.


To varying degrees, all the scenarios represent a gamble, a certain number of technologies essential to their realization being today only at the experimental stage. The two most divergent scenarios aggregate the greatest number of "uncertainties", for example on the connection of new marine energies or the stability of the network in the case of "100% renewable". Or concerning the extension of certain reactors beyond sixty years and the installation of several gigawatts of small reactors in the case of "50% nuclear".


While it may pose difficulties of social acceptability or integration into the living environment, the development of onshore wind and solar power will not lead to strong artificialization and waterproofing of soils, assures RTE. At the scale of the territory, the surfaces devoted to the electricity system will remain low (between 20,000 and 30,000 hectares out of 55 million): France would have between 25,000 and 35,000 wind turbines in 2050 in a “100% renewable” scenario (at for comparison, Germany has 30,000 today on a smaller territory) and solar panels could cover between 0.1 and 0.3% of the country.

More than the impacts on biodiversity, renewables would pose an aesthetic or heritage question. "Today, the production of fossil fuels is invisible to citizens, because it is not located in France, and the production of electricity in power plants is very concentrated, observes Thomas Veyrenc. Renewable infrastructures are much more visible in the territories. "



RTE also reaffirms it: greenhouse gas emissions associated with renewable energies and nuclear power will be very low, even taking into account their entire life cycle. The scenario causing the most emissions would be that of ... "100% renewable": just over 10 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (CO2e), compared to more than 25 million for the electricity system in 2019.


If the role of electricity is essential in order to reduce CO2 emissions, it is not sufficient, however, the report recalls: achieving carbon neutrality by the middle of the century, that is to say emitting as much greenhouse gas as it is possible to store, as France has committed, will also rely on other levers such as the development of bioenergy or the reduction in emissions from the energy sector. Agriculture.


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