Paris (AFP)

The network of experts, a pioneer in carrying out this kind of forward-looking exercise, is putting forward its new scenario for 2050 a few days before the manager of the French high-voltage electricity network RTE presents its own, eagerly awaited by the public authorities.

NégaWatt first notes that we could significantly reduce energy needs by efficiently renovating buildings: from 30,000 to 800,000 global thermal renovations per year by 2030, with comprehensive work and not piecemeal.

The electrification of cars, supplemented by hybrid biogas (to avoid too much reliance on lithium), modal shift, as well as a levy for road transport to finance rail ("the idea is not less to go on vacation ") form the other lever of action on demand to get out of fossils, sources of global warming.

Ultimately, final energy consumption is halved in 2050 compared to today.

The supply is based on wind turbines, the number of which will have to be doubled, to 18,500, when Germany already has 30,000.

"It is not an invasion as some want to believe," comments Marc Jedliczka, a spokesperson.

But also photovoltaics, by doubling the current annual growth.

The scenario also relies on a sharp increase in agricultural biogas.

Corollary: no need to build nuclear reactors, or even to start the EPR at Flamanville (north-west), described as a "major industrial failure".

And "by closing the old reactors between their 40th and 50th years, the electricity system can do without the atom while ensuring security of supply via the storage and management of electrical flexibilities" generated by renewables, calculated the 'association.

The atom today produces more than 70% of the current in France, the most nuclear-powered country in the world.

The government wants to reduce it to 50% by 2035, but the rest is the subject of rough debates, revived in the electoral context.

According to the association, the country's carbon neutrality could even be achieved as early as 2047, with carbon sinks enabled by agroecology and "zero net artificialization".

For its part, RTE should present several scenarios on Monday, all pointing to the necessary boom in renewables, ranging from 100% renewable to 50-50 renewable-nuclear, with in sight, France's commitment to achieve to carbon neutrality in 2050.

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