The decarbonization of gas takes longer than for electricity, estimates the boss of Engie

France has committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, an ambitious decarbonization goal. According to Engie's managing director, Catherine MacGregor, although "the renewable energy train is moving", the decarbonization of gas will take longer than that of electricity.

“The trajectory of decarbonization of the molecule”, that is to say the gas of fossil origin, “will be a little slower than what we see on the electrons”, electricity in the jargon of energy companies, explained Ms. MacGregor during an exchange organized by the Association of Energy Journalists (AJDE).

If "the electron decarbonizes very, very, very quickly", with wind and solar power, "we see that the decarbonization of the molecule takes a little more time", underlined Catherine MacGregor in reference to the replacement of the fossil gas with renewable gas (biomethane) or hydrogen produced from green or low-carbon electricity.

On Engie's side, "we obviously continue to be very supportive of the potential of biomethane, the potential of hydrogen and its derivatives. Even if it's true that I see that the hydrogen market takes a little longer than we thought at the start to materialize", admitted the director of the group, historic gas supplier in France, which has become a major operator in solar and wind power (first in France, 4th in Europe, according to him).

The group's leader recently confirmed that she had postponed Engie's objective of reaching 2030 gigawatts (GW) of hydrogen production capacity from low-carbon electricity from 2035 to 4. Several projects are underway in Chile, Australia and the United States.

According to her, the market is taking longer to mature due to "technological, industrial and economic challenges", with in particular a subject on the capacity to "scale up very large electrolysers", necessary to help large energy-intensive industries to do without fossil fuels.

For Engie, it will be necessary to keep natural gas "in our system, at least in the short term by taking the time to replace it with carbon molecules", with biomethane on the one hand, "which will therefore decarbonize the gas without anything change since it is the same molecule" and on the other hand, hydrogen.