l'Actualité du Solaire

Most scenarios, including those of the International Energy Agency, "predict" a strong growth in global electricity demand by 2040-2050, but most countries are hesitant about the strategies to be followed.

The IEA has considered two scenarios with, in both cases, a clear increase in the production of renewable energy:

1°) The growth in the demand for primary energy would be 25% from a weakly voluntarist point of view. The share of fossil fuels would fall from 81% in 2017 to 74% with a strong increase in the demand for gas. CO2 emissions would increase by 10%. Final electricity consumption would grow at a rate of 2.1% per year.

2°) From a sustainable development perspective, energy demand would decrease slightly. The share of fossil fuels would fall from 81% in 2017 to 60%, limiting CO2 emissions and making it possible to respect global warming. Final electricity consumption would grow at a low rate.

In a third, more proactive scenario to develop electricity, its share would rise to 31% of final consumption. Electric mobility would be largely favoured. The share of renewables (including hydropower) would rise from 25% in 2017 to 41% in 2040 in this scenario. The share of nuclear power would remain at 10% throughout the period, with wind power at 12% and solar power at 9%.

The problems ahead are the electrification of Africa, which would be far from complete, and the intermittent nature of RE, as the electricity system requires to be operational 24 hours a day, especially at peak hours. Reserve power currently provided by the dams must be provided, but it will have to be reinforced by batteries.

In FranceAccording to a study by the European Commission, renewable energies would provide 40% of electricity production in 2030 (against 22.7% in 2018 and 18.5% in 2017) with an installed capacity of 102 to 113 GW in 2028 (twice that of 2018). There would thus be a doubling of installations requiring large investments, leading to an increase in the price per kilowatt-hour.

Ademe, in its projections to 2060, estimates that the MWh could be delivered to consumers at around €90, with a production cost of less than €80/MWh from 2050. The cost of the MWh produced by EPRs would cost €85 (€70 if several EPRs are built), but with an additional cost of €39bn from the nuclear sector. These estimates are close to those of the IEA, but much lower than the MIT estimates.

Above all, many areas of uncertainty remain about the future of electricity: they stem from the emergence of electric vehicles, which could destabilise production by recharging batteries at peak times, and which requires the creation of an infrastructure for rapid recharging. Similarly, the industrial dimension of the electric sector is rarely taken into account: what strategies for production, storage (especially batteries), supply of "critical" metals? What research policy?

Many questions still remain unanswered.

https://www.lemondedelenergie.com/electricite-energie-futur/2019/01/22/

Le Monde de l'Energie of January 22nd

Editor's note If we don't want to use fossil fuels and if people are afraid of nuclear power, then electricity is the only energy of the future. It is certain that the emergence of this energy will have repercussions on the way of life, on industrial organisation, on humanity. It will transform the economic landscape. Looking thirty years into the future is like looking at crystal balls. Indeed, five years from now, what will be the repercussions of direct electricity purchases when large companies have multiplied such contracts? What will EDF's reaction be? Who will be the new players? We can only be certain of one thing, renewable energies have not finished developing, reducing the cost of energy, changing the international relations formerly based on oil. What remains to be done is to use modern technologies and see what this will transform.