In his speech on November 9, Emmanuel Macron announced the construction of new nuclear reactors in France.
"For the first time in decades," said the President of the Republic.
The announcement had been in the air for several weeks, with the executive only waiting for the report from RTE - published on October 25, on the possible scenarios for achieving carbon neutrality in 2050 - to support this decision.
However, this vast 650-page study does not only develop scenarios for the evolution of our electricity mix, but also puts on the table hypotheses for evaluating our consumption.
A shutter too set aside so far?
For or against nuclear ?
The issue of the energy transition to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 is often reduced to this question in France.
Energy Futures 2050, the major study published by the Electricity Transmission Network (RTE) on October 25, was another illustration of this.
At the request of the government, the manager of the French electricity network has worked for two and a half years, in concert with a hundred organizations and associations, on the possible evolutions of our electricity production system between now and 2050. The whole thing gives a 650 pages online that RTE will complete again in the coming months.
RTE has selected six possible scenarios for an electricity production mix in thirty years.
Three are moving towards 100% renewable energy (ENR) - solar, onshore and offshore wind power - and three others are planning new nuclear reactors.
Electricity consumption which is stagnating in France ...
In a way, Emmanuel Macron settled the debate on November 9 by announcing, without specifying the number, the construction of new EPR reactors in France *. Is it putting the cart before the horse? "There is a first debate to have upstream around our electricity consumption, and to what extent we make control of it a priority or not," said Jean-Baptise Lebrun, director of the Cler-Réseau for energy transition.
After having sharply increased between 1973 and 2010, this consumption has stagnated or even tends to decrease since then.
It reached 473 terrawatt-hours (Twh) in 2019 *, at the time, the lowest level in ten years **.
"Since 2008, we have been in a period of more sluggish economic growth, and during which the deindustrialisation of our country has continued," explains Nicolas Goldberg, "energy" expert at Colombus Consulting.
But our equipment has also gained in energy efficiency.
If only in lighting, with the advent of LEDs.
"
… But who can only increase in 2050?
It is likely that our electricity consumption will increase by 2050. “We forget that, but two-thirds of our final energy consumption today is based on oil [mainly for our transport] and natural gas. [production of heat for heating, cooking, hot water…] ”, repeats in recent weeks Barbara Pompili, Minister for the Ecological Transition. However, achieving carbon neutrality means getting out of these two fossil fuels by 2050.
There are three main levers to achieve this: energy efficiency, by further improving the performance and good use of our equipment; sobriety then, by reducing energy consumption through more appropriate uses. The third is that of the electrification of uses *** which today rely on gas or oil, typically by replacing its petrol car with an electric one or its oil or gas boiler with a heat pump. It is one of the possible levers in France insofar as our electricity production, which is essentially based on nuclear power, is today largely carbon-free.
At first glance, this may seem paradoxical, but total energy consumption in France is expected to drop by 2050, and that of electricity to increase. “On these two trajectories, there is a relative consensus, specifies Nicolas Goldberg. Even proponents of greater attention to sobriety and energy efficiency - like negaWatt - predict a slight increase in our electricity use. "
The challenge is to know where to place the cursors.
In its report, RTE takes up the broad guidelines set by the National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC), France's official roadmap for achieving carbon neutrality.
This forecasts a 40% drop in France's final energy consumption over the next thirty years.
As for the share of electricity in this total, it should drop from 27% today to 55% in 2050, according to the SNBC.
Not to make the control of our consumption a variant?
Under these conditions, French electricity consumption would reach 645 TWh in 2050, according to RTE's reference trajectory. It would drop from 15 TWh to 100 in the transport sector alone. To this central scenario, RTE adds two variants in Energy Futures 2050. One assumes a strong reindustrialisation of France, which would imply greater consumption of electricity, reaching 750 TWh in 2050. L Another hypothesis is greater sobriety in use and consumption, which would make it possible to reduce our consumption of final energy, and therefore of electricity, more sharply. We would then be 555 TWh in 2050, an estimate close to the 530 TWh forecast by negaWatt in its own scenario published on October 26.
Jean-Baptiste Lebrun then ticks off the way in which RTE presents its three hypotheses for the evolution of our electricity consumption.
More particularly the fact that the sobriety trajectory is considered only as a “variant” - for which the analysis of the economic and social impacts has not yet been published [not before 2022, we told RTE ].
Unlike the central scenario.
"Whose vision then is this latter?" Asks the director of Le Cler.
Is this the scenario deemed most likely by RTE, or what is pushing behind the scenes by the current government?
"
A sobriety also synonymous with more freedom?
The question is not in vain for Jean-Baptiste Lebrun as this issue of the energy transition is
ultimately a matter
of political choices, even of society's choice. “The more you convey this idea that we are moving towards a sharp increase in our electricity consumption, the more you legitimize the scenarios that involve the construction of new nuclear reactors,” he summarizes. This perspective is far from being consensual and should at least be the subject of a real debate. "
The alternative ? Therefore, to put at the heart of French energy policies the notions of energy efficiency and sobriety, "two levers of which we are far from having exploited all the potentialities to date", agree to say Jean-Baptiste Lebrun and Nicolas Goldberg. “In particular on sobriety, notes the latter. The notion is scary because it affects our way of life. It is too often reduced to deprivation of liberty. However, it can be synonymous with the opposite. Being able to telecommute or opt for soft mobility for your daily trips comes into sobriety. "
RTE does not neglect the importance of these two levers of energy efficiency to achieve carbon neutrality.
It is even the first lesson of the eighteen lessons that the company draws from its study.
“However, she made her projections by imagining French society in 2050 as it is today, for example with the private car as the dominant model, regrets Nicolas Golberg.
This is a small criticism that we can make of our work.
We have to hope that we are out of this impasse in thirty years.
"
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* However, the government until recently required the commissioning of the Flamanville EPR - now scheduled for the end of 2022, ten years late - to make such a decision.
** French electricity consumption fell even more in 2020, due to the health crisis linked to Covid-19, which led to a decline in the activity of industry and many sectors of the economy, recalls RTE.
It was then established at 460 TWh, a decrease of 3.5% compared to 2019.
*** This electrification also contributes, in some cases, to greater energy efficiency.
"Electric motors for cars have an efficiency two to three times higher than heat engines", illustrates RTE in Futurs Energétiques 2050.
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