Aurélien Fleurot, edited by Romain Rouillard 3:39 p.m., July 10, 2022

In Fos-sur-Mer, a vast project to produce gas from renewable energies is underway.

An essential solution when shortages are to be feared for next winter, a consequence of the war in Ukraine, and when the energy transition requires less dependence on fossil fuels.

It is perhaps in Fos-sur-Mer that part of French energy sovereignty is at stake.

While shortages are to be feared for next winter and the energy transition requires being less dependent on fossil fuels, different options are developing in the country.

Among them, the production of "clean" gas from renewable energies and therefore made in France.

This is the project that GRTgaz is currently carrying out on the Fos-sur-Mer site, where a demonstrator has just passed an important stage: after hydrogen, it is now syngas that is produced.

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In the heart of the industrial-port area of ​​Fos-sur-Mer, Sylvain Lemelletier is the project director for GRTgaz, gives some explanations to the microphone of Europe 1. "We are here on the Jupiter 1000 site which is a demonstrator of " Power to gas", that is to say transforming renewable electricity into gas. The particularity of this site is that we will transform it sometimes into hydrogen, sometimes into e-methane".

"Replace up to 20% of the gas consumed today with renewable gases" 

This synthesis gas therefore comes from both CO2, captured from the chimneys of the steelworks located just next door, and green hydrogen produced on site.

A solution that could grow according to Anthony Mazzenga, hydrogen director of GRTgaz.

"In 2030, up to 20% of the gas consumed today can be replaced by all renewable gases, including hydrogen and e-methane. 20% is more than, historically, gas that could be imported from Russia". 

The stakes are also financial since injecting cleaner gas would cost up to three times less than simply replacing the 33,000 km of GRTgaz pipelines.