“Energy Futures 2050”… But what will RTE be talking about on Monday?

• Monday morning, Electricity transmission network (RTE) publishes the conclusions of “Energy Futures 2050”, a prospective study on the future of our electricity system.

  A system that the objective of carbon neutrality that France has set itself invites to transform.

• For this work, launched more than two years ago and for which RTE has consulted a large number of players, six technically possible electricity mix scenarios for 2050 have been developed.

  Three of which tend to be 100% renewable.

• New proof, for associations promoting energy transition, that it is possible.

  It remains to be seen whether this will be the option chosen by the government.

  These NGOs have big doubts.

It is a highly anticipated report.

Including by the government and Emmanuel Macron, who have mentioned it several times in recent weeks as having to determine important decisions for the country's energy future.

Monday morning, RTE, manager of the French electricity transmission network, publishes the first conclusions of its “Energy Futures 2050” study.

The culmination of two and a half years of work during which RTE has studied the possible changes to our electricity production system * for the next thirty years.

This is a crucial period as France has set itself the objective of carbon neutrality in 2050, which implies a profound energy transition.

What electricity consumption can we expect in 2050?

Can we rely solely on renewable energies (ENR) to answer them?

What places are still possible for nuclear power?

These are the questions at the heart of “Energy Futures 2050”.

you to take a tour.

How is this report unique?

It is RTE's legal missions to regularly carry out short-term forecast reports on French electricity consumption and production to inform government decisions. “The objective of carbon neutrality gives this mission quite another importance,” explains Yves Marignac, head of the nuclear and fossil energies division of the NegaWatt Institute, an association of energy experts. It is no longer enough to plan the continuation of our electricity system but to think about its transformation and further horizons. “From forecasting, we move on to prospecting. "That is to say, the development of hypotheses whose implications must be questioned", continues Yves Marignac. A much more sensitive exercise "because at the heart of political choices that we can no longer retreat,If only because the existing nuclear fleet is reaching the end of its life, ”recalls the director of the CLER-Réseau association for energy transition.

RTE did not work in its corner for this study.

In mid-2019, the company launched a consultation of around 100 organizations and institutions, organized into nine thematic working groups.

This work gave rise to six possible scenarios for the electricity production mix for 2050, and three hypotheses for variation in electricity consumption.

They were then submitted to a public consultation between January and June.

It collected 4,000 contributions.

What are the six scenarios selected by RTE?

“The six scenarios all have in common the goal of achieving carbon neutrality in 2050,” says Zélie Victor, “Energy Transition” manager at the Climate Action Network, a federation of climate NGOs. In short: that the production of electricity in France is no longer a source of greenhouse gas emissions by this date. It is on how to reach this milestone that the scenarios differ. Three are betting to achieve it with a production mix tending towards 100% renewable energy. By therefore relying primarily on solar and wind energy (on land and at sea). The M0 scenario even provides for a complete nuclear phase-out in 2050, when no new nuclear installation is planned in the other two **.

The other three scenarios constitute the N family… as nuclear. If they are betting on a rise in renewables by 2050, they also all plan to associate it with the atom by investing in new installations. The N03 is even based on a 50% ENR - 50% nuclear mix in 2050, with the construction of 14 new EPRs and a few SMRs, these small modular reactors recently mentioned by Emmanuel Macron in his France 2030 plan. The N1, which provides the least of installations, plans eight new EPRs in 2050.

RTE has already detailed its six scenarios in a report published in early June.

"They are all technically possible, but it remains to assess the technical, economic, social acceptability, environmental consequences of these six trajectories," explains Jean-Baptiste Lebrun.

It is this socio-economic assessment that will begin to be published on Monday.

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Is 100% renewable possible in France in 2050?

It is on this point that the energy transition associations insist, recalling that three of the six possible scenarios are based on a 100% renewable mix. “This is not the first time that reports have highlighted the technical feasibility of a 100% renewable future,” says Zélie Victor, referring to the work of Ademe in 2015, those of three economists from the International Center. of research on environment and development (CIRED), or the report of RTE and the International Energy Agency (IEA) of last January.

But the question of carbon neutrality is not limited to the fact of being based on a 100% renewable mix in 2050. "The control that we will make of the demand for electricity by 2050 is just as crucial", insists Yves Marignac. Is an issue too little taken into account in Energy Futures 2050? Beyond the six scenarios, the study also determined trajectories for the evolution of electricity demand. As a reminder, in 2020, French consumption stood at 460 terawatt-hour (Thw) ***. “The low assumption adopted by RTE - called sobriety - anticipates a demand of 550 Twh in 2050, continues Yves Marignac. This is relatively close to the estimates we make in our scenarios. But for RTE, this hypothesis is presented as a variant, when its central trajectory, the one it should put forward on Monday,forecasts a demand of 650 Twh in 2050. ”A presentation that negaWatt does not like. “It gives the impression that sobriety and the search for energy efficiency take second place, is only a variant, whereas it must be the main pillar to achieve carbon neutrality. "The no regrets option," Zélie Victor describes. Because we can initiate it now, by accelerating much more than is done to date on the energy renovation of our buildings. "Because we can initiate it now, by accelerating much more than is done to date on the energy renovation of our buildings. "Because we can initiate it now, by accelerating much more than is done to date on the energy renovation of our buildings. "

The future 2050 electricity mix, a deal already done?

This hierarchization of consumption assumptions - between the main and the variant - is high at stake for Yves Marignac: "The more you anticipate a sharp increase in electricity demand, the less easy it becomes to do without nuclear power", summarizes- he does.

The RAC and the Cler are also wondering whether the future French electricity mix is ​​not already a concluded deal in the eyes of the government. Jean-Baptiste Lebrun cites as proof “the repeated interventions of ministers, in recent months, to prepare the ground for new investments in nuclear power. “For example, Barbara Pompili, Minister for the Ecological Transition, on October 7, presenting new measures for responsible development of wind power. She then urged not to oppose nuclear and ENR, believing that we will need both in the decades to come. She did not rule out the decision to build new nuclear reactors either.

In May, EDF gave the government a file on the possible construction of six new EPRs over the next fifteen years.

"There is very strong pressure from the nuclear lobby in this direction," says Jean-Baptiste Lebrun.

The government had always said that it would not take such a decision before the commissioning of the Flamanville EPR [not until next summer at best].

He should finally do it long before ”.

Even before Christmas, according to

.

Planet

Nuclear: Why does France not want to be left behind on SMRs, pocket reactors?

* Our electricity production mix is ​​currently based on 67.1% nuclear, 13% hydraulic, 7.9% wind, 2.5% solar, 7.5% thermal, etc.

** These three scenarios, which tend towards 100% renewable energy, are also distinguished from each other by providing for increases in power that are different from solar and wind power.

For example, the M0 and the M1 foresee a strong development of solar energy by 2050. “They also differ on the distribution of these new installations, adds Zélie Victor.

In other words: diffusely over the territory or in large parks?

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*** Down 3.5% compared to 2019 due to the health crisis.

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