More renewables, nuclear power and sobriety: the State proposes its energy strategy

Getting out of hydrocarbons

This “French Strategy for Energy and Climate” (SFEC), a 102-page document, must be put online on Wednesday for public consultation, until December 15. It will include a law on energy production expected in early 2024.

Its main features were known since the speech on energy delivered in February 2022 in Belfort by Emmanuel Macron. Two laws at the start of 2023 on the “acceleration” of nuclear power and renewable energies have also set the scene.

Objective: “get out of dependence on fossil fuels” by 2050, explains the government, with France's final energy consumption remaining today composed of 37% oil and 21% gas.

For the climate and the sovereignty of the country, we need “an economy that is more sober, more efficient and almost entirely supplied with low-carbon energy produced and controlled on our soil”.

This dependence on hydrocarbons "weighs on the bill of the French, this is what last year led prices to soar because fossil fuels are produced in Russia, in the Middle East, and we have not price control", explained the Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher on LCI on Wednesday.

“By producing energy at home, we create jobs, we can install industrial sites and we control our bill,” she added.

What energies in 2035?

Tomorrow will be electric. On the nuclear front, "all reactors will be kept in operation as long as safety requirements are strictly respected and while seeking power gains where possible", with in parallel the launch of a new reactor program (six then eight EPR2), advocates the document.

It will also be necessary to “massify the production of all renewable energies”.

Starting with offshore wind power, with a capacity of 18 gigawatts (GW) in 2035 (i.e. around thirty parks like the one off Saint-Nazaire, the only one in service today in France).

Photovoltaic energy will have to double its annual rate of deployment, to reach more than 75 GW in 2035 (with the possibility of reinforced ambitions), adds the project, also transmitted to Brussels.

Onshore wind power, which the president wanted to slow down, would ultimately keep its current pace, and would see its capacities double, to 40 GW in 2035, or some 1,5 GW more (around forty parks) per year. The government, however, calls for "a balanced distribution" and to invest in "repowering", that is to say the replacement of old wind turbines with new, more powerful ones.

Reduce consumption

Electricity alone will not be enough, particularly for industries or heating. Biogas capacities (from food waste, agricultural waste, etc.) would be multiplied by 5 by 2030, to 50 TWh. In 2050, there would be “only low-carbon gas”.

The State also wants to quadruple the rate of growth of geothermal energy by 2030.

But to be able to supply itself with local energy, France will also have to reduce its energy consumption by 40 to 50% in 2050 compared to 2021 (-30% in 2030 compared to 2012).

“Sobriety will become a mantra for the next 30 years,” said the minister.

This will notably involve home renovation and electric vehicles.

"This figure may seem colossal but most low-carbon consumption methods are intrinsically very 'efficient'", the ministry insists: a heat pump much more than an oil boiler, the same for an electric car.

A transition for all?

“The subject is to ensure that ecology is no longer a luxury product,” said the minister, referring to aid (scrapping bonuses, bonuses) and the fuel economy of electric cars which today a new electric one at 15.000 euros.

Over time, “the transition will involve new industrial sectors, with prices which will gradually converge towards the price of carbon solutions”. So “no, absolutely not”, it will not always be necessary to have more public money to support it.

In addition to a law, this strategy will be the subject of an upcoming decree, describing the main orientations by energy over five-year periods.

France Renouvelables welcomed objectives which “are based on facts”.

But to keep them going, notes its delegate Michel Gioria, "the State, finance, local elected officials... must now organize" this rise in power and keep a regular rhythm, far from the jolts which have shaken the sector in recent years. last years.