Next week, the French environment and energy agency ADEME, a government body led by the ministries of the environment and that of research, is to hold a two-day conference in Paris to discuss the potential future role of renewable energy in electricity production in France. The April 14th-15th conference, entitled ‘40% of renewable electricity by 2050: is France ready?’ was originally planned to discuss a far more radical proposition – that of a 100% reliance on renewables for all of France’s electricity supply.
The scenario of a total reliance on renewables in the year 2050 was the subject of an expert study by ADEME and was to have been presented before the conference. However, just days before the event, it was removed from the agenda and its publication is now postponed until the autumn.
Questioned by Mediapart, a spokesperson for ADEME claimed the study, entitled 'Towards a 100% electricity mix of renewable energies in 2050' and whose publication this month had previously been announced by ADEME and its president Bruno Léchevin, was still incomplete. “This exploratory study had been announced but complementary work on certain points needs to be led in order to consolidate the study,” said an ADEME press officer.
However, Mediapart has gained access to the report, reproduced in full below, and the words “Final report” are clearly printed on the cover page of the 119-page document.
The study stems from 14 months of very detailed research, and examines the feasibility and costs of several different models of dependence on renewables for electricity production in France, ranging from a 40% reliance to that of 100%, in 2050.
While President François Hollande has previously fixed a target of reducing France’s reliance on nuclear energy from the current 75% of electricity production to 50% by 2025, the report argues that this would in fact be only slightly cheaper for consumers than a 100% reliance on renewable energies. That conclusion is a significant disavowal of the argument long put forward by French governments and the nuclear industry lobby that nuclear-sourced electricity is significantly cheaper than any other alternative.
Questioned by Mediapart, ADEME insisted the publication of the document was postponed because a number of points raised in the study must yet be submitted to experts for review. However, in the report itself, its authors note that “with the aim of scientific solidity and robustness, the hypotheses, methodologies and results were put before a scientific committee made up of national and international experts from the energy sector, both industrial and academic”. These included experts from RTE, the subsidiary of utility giant EDF in charge of electricity distribution, from the intergovernmental International Energy Agency, from oil giant Total, the French meteorological institute Météo France and the Paris-based Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), a research offshoot of the political sciences school Sciences Po.
Contacted by Mediapart, the environment and energy ministry declined to comment on the issues raised in this report.
The conclusions of the politically sensitive report challenge a number of arguments put forward by the pro-nuclear lobby in France, which is currently more dependent upon nuclear power than any other country worldwide.
By the year 2050, 100% of France’s electricity requirements could be produced by renewable energies.
The objective of the authors was to verify the credibility of a 100% reliance on renewable energies by 2050, even under unfavourable meteorological conditions. They found that France has a considerable potential in renewable energy sources, which would be capable of providing 1,268 terawatts per hour - three times more than expected demand.
The report calculated supply and demand on an hourly basis over the duration of one year, working on models of renewable energy sources for every French region (including inland and maritime wind farms, hydroelectric stations, household rubbish incinerators and solar power).
The report identifies a number of combinations of renewable energy sources which would allow for a completely reliable production of required electricity supply day and night. It presented the ideal combination as being 63% of electricity produced by wind turbines, 17% by solar energy, 13% from hydraulic sources and 7% from renewable thermal sources (including geothermal energy).
The important place given to wind turbines in the projections notably acknowledges the developments in technology that allow for them to be adapted for regions where wind strength is weak. However, the report’s authors recognised that a significant increase in the numbers of wind turbines in local environments may meet public resistance, and for that reason they devised an alternative model whereby fewer numbers of inland wind turbines and ground-level photovoltaic systems are compensated by roof-mounted solar panels, the development of marine wave energy conversion systems, and a large energy storage network.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
The report underlines the need for a combination of energy sources, and notably the complimentary use of solar- and wind-based energy production, which reduces the importance of extreme meteorological conditions. Energy storage involves battery technology for short-term requirements, the use of pumped-storage hydroelectricity and, for longer term, seasonal periods, the elaboration of ‘power to gas’ and ‘gas to power’ systems which convert electrical power to gas fuel and vice versa.
In all, the report studied four different scenarios by which renewable energies accounted for 100%, 95%, 80% and 40% of energy supply. In their conclusions, the report’s authors underlined the need for caution. “ADEME is fully aware that this study is but the first brick of an edifice that it is necessary to build up over the coming years,” they wrote. “The results prompt further questions which future studies could most certainly deal with.”
Total reliance on renewable energies would not cost much more than maintaining the contribution of nuclear power at 50%.
This is one of the most remarkable conclusions of the study, which urges decision-makers to adopt a vision that goes “beyond the conventional wisdom about renewable energies”, and which foresees total dependence on renewable energies as being achievable at a controlled and reasonable cost.
The total annual cost of a national energy supply based on a 100% reliance on renewable energies is estimated at 50.1 billion euros. This is based on a detailed study of the costs of installment and maintenance of energy production networks and storage, annual operating costs, investment in the transport network and the variable costs of combustibles in electricity production.
Of this annual total cost of 50.1 billion euros, 65% is the cost of renewable energies, 23% is the cost of the distribution system, 8% is the cost of energy storage, and 4% is that of the 400 kV network. By dividing this overall cost with the annual energy demand of 422 TWh, the report estimates that the energy price would be 119 euros per MegaWatt hour (MWh). That compares with a current cost of 91 euros per MWh, and a three-quarter reliance on nuclear energy.
Enlargement : Illustration 3
But if the share of renewable energies is limited to just 40% by 2050 (when the share of nuclear production would potentially amount to 50%), the per MWh cost is estimated at 117 euros. Similarly, in the two other projections studied in the report, an 80% reliance on renewable would cost 113 euros perMWh, and a 95% reliance on renewables would amount to 116 euros per MWh (see above).
The report insists that controlling demand is “a key element” for limiting the costs of a total reliance on renewable energies, notably regarding production and storage plants. It also identifies further questions to be studied: the effects of flexibility in industrial energy consumption, the possible constraints of foreign-sourced renewable energies, and the social, economic and environmental effects of total reliance on renewable energies.
ADEME has announced that the report will now be made public in the autumn. That will be months after the French energy and climate agency, the DGEC, which advises on the country’s energy policies, will have defined its key propositions for France’s ‘energy transition’ programme, which aims to cut energy use and oversee the switch from nuclear and fossil fuels to renewable energies. These are due before the summer, presented within the framework of the Multiannual Energy Programming committee (La programmation pluriannuelle de l’énergie, or PPE), which will set out energy policy for the period 2016-2018, and later for the five years 2019-2023. The conclusions of the committee are due to form the basis of a government decree later this year, before the opening in Paris in December of the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
But the publication of the ADEME report will also come well after the DGEC has defined France’s low-carbon strategy, a programme also created by environment and energy minister Ségolène Royal, and after it has completed a report for submission to the European Union on the projected evolution of the French energy system over the period up until 2035.
While the report may not represent a Rosetta Stone for the energy transition programme, nor does it contain a miraculous solution for greenhouse gases or the battle against climate change, it does however have the considerable merit of providing detailed and costed facts and arguments that are necessary for a proper debate about France’s future energy model: what is physically and technologically possible, and the costs of this for the economy and society.
Decisions about investment in energy production must be taken many years in advance of targets and the year 2050 is, in this context, far from a distant deadline. However, such long-term planning has regularly been absent from the agendas of political leaders, and notably the current French government. The ADEME report is an indispensable element in the discussion about future energy choices, and postponing its publication is to deprive the wider public of important information and analyses. It is for that reason that Mediapart decided to publish it in full here.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse