Can the energy transition succeed?

Europe’s goal for 2050 is to move towards a low-car­bon world. “Glob­al warm­ing is expec­ted to reach 1.5 degrees by 2030, and prob­ably over 3 degrees or even 3.5 degrees by 2100, so we’ll soon be at unman­age­able tem­per­at­ures,” says Olivi­er Sala, vice-pres­id­ent in charge of research and innov­a­tion at Engie. “The urgent situ­ation we face on cli­mate change means we can’t wait any longer. But after dec­ades of cli­mate deni­al, we shouldn’t give in to des­pond­ency. We have a duty to be optim­ist­ic, and to take action.”

So how best to go about it? Firstly, by redu­cing our energy con­sump­tion at a European level by at least 30–50%. This requires policies that encour­age energy suf­fi­ciency. Secondly, by switch­ing to elec­tri­city for as many of our activ­it­ies as pos­sible, using decar­bon­ised, renew­able energy sources such as wind and sol­ar power. Thirdly, the use of low-car­bon molecules, either of bio­lo­gic­al ori­gin (food or agri­cul­tur­al waste, for example), or pro­duced from hydro­gen. Unlike hydro­gen pro­duced from hydro­car­bons, hydro­gen obtained from the elec­tro­lys­is of water is non-polluting.

“If we want emis­sions with zero car­bon foot­print, the CO₂ emit­ted must come from bio­gen­ic sources, such as meth­an­iz­a­tion, a tech­no­logy based on the break­down of organ­ic mat­ter by micro-organ­isms, under con­trolled con­di­tions and in the absence of oxy­gen,” con­tin­ues Olivi­er Sala. “Anoth­er pos­sib­il­ity is to cap­ture CO₂ from the air. Major invest­ments are being made in this tech­no­logy, but they won’t bear fruit for at least anoth­er ten years.”

Which of these aven­ues is Engie pur­su­ing? They’re all inter­est­ing, but they need to be stud­ied togeth­er, because there won’t be a mir­acle solu­tion for decar­bon­iz­ing our emis­sions, but a vari­ety of tech­nic­al solu­tions that need to be com­bined accord­ing to loc­al situ­ations. The chal­lenge is also to strengthen Europe’s abil­ity to pro­cure the raw mater­i­als needed to man­u­fac­ture com­pon­ents (cobalt and lith­i­um in par­tic­u­lar) and to encour­age indus­tri­al innov­a­tion in these new energies.

After Ger­many and Italy, France is the third-largest pro­du­cer of sol­ar energy, but sol­ar power only accounts for 3% of French energy con­sump­tion, so there’s plenty of room for growth in this sec­tor. This can be achieved not only by mul­tiply­ing the num­ber of photo­vol­ta­ic pan­els, but also by diver­si­fy­ing the sur­faces on which they can be installed, and of course by improv­ing their per­form­ance. Jordi Badosa, Research Dir­ect­or at École Poly­tech­nique (IP Par­is) and Tech­nic­al Dir­ect­or of the Centre Inter­dis­cip­lin­aire Energie4Climate (E4C), is work­ing on this very subject.

At the SIRTA atmo­spher­ic research obser­vat­ory, he is devel­op­ing exper­i­ment­al instru­ment­al plat­forms to test con­di­tions that are more or less favor­able to photo­vol­ta­ic pan­el energy pro­duc­tion. The aim is to deploy sol­ar energy on a massive scale across a dis­trict or city.

New aven­ues are being explored, such as agri-vol­ta­ics, which involves com­bin­ing sol­ar energy pro­duc­tion with agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion. Install­a­tions are being tested above crops that need little sun­light (par­tic­u­larly lettuce), with pan­els that can be adjus­ted to let in more or less light depend­ing on the time of day and the time of year. In the event of drought, such pan­els can also pro­tect the soil from evap­or­a­tion. Lakes would also be good places to install sol­ar pan­els, because the warm­er they are, the less energy they pro­duce. Float­ing, they bene­fit from a nat­ur­al cool­ing effect. 

Sig­ni­fic­ant pro­gress has also been made in recyc­ling the vari­ous mater­i­als that make up photo­vol­ta­ic pan­els, which are now 90% recyc­lable – an essen­tial factor when con­sid­er­ing sus­tain­able technologies.

The issue of the inter­mit­tency of sol­ar energy remains. But in addi­tion to the research being car­ried out on stor­age, Jordi Badosa agrees with Olivi­er Sala that the future lies in an energy mix that includes solu­tions based on green hydrogen. 

Finally, if the energy trans­ition is to suc­ceed, “these ener­gies will have to be not only accep­ted but, above all, desired by con­sumers”, con­cludes Olivi­er Sala.

Marina Julienne