The new clean energy technologies – renewables, batteries, electrolysers, fuel cells, carbon capture systems – comprise significant assets if we are to reconcile industrial competitiveness with climate neutrality. Where are we today, and what brakes or obstacles do we still need to overcome?
Renewable energies: + 10.8% in France in 2023
With a total of 365 TWh of renewable energies produced, out of a total of 1,420 TWh – that’s 27% (as against 72% from nuclear and 1% from fossil fuels)(1) – France has seen primary production of renewable energies increase by 10.8% in 2023. This production is dominated by wood energy (31%, or 114 TWh), followed by hydropower (15%, so 56 TWh), wind power and heat pumps (14% each, so 51 TWh), then PV solar, biogas and biofuels (6% each, so 23 TWh), energy from waste (4%, so 14.6 TWh) and finally geothermal, agro-waste (almost 1% each, so around 3 TWh) and marine energies (barely 0.1%, so 0.3 TWh).
PV solar in France benefits from a number of factors, such as the roll-out of self-consumption, the obligation to install PV panels over large car parks (those of over 1500 m²), building solar energy onto warehouses and depots, the development of agrivoltaics, along with the introduction of floating solar (e.g. the 72.3 MW floating solar project forming part of a total of 74.3 MW run by Ciel & Terre in Haute-Marne) or the roll-out of flexible and detachable CIGS thin film-based PV (e.g. the Soy PV project shortly to be inaugurated at Aulnay-sous-Bois).
Production of wind power has grown by 37.9%, due particularly to the effective launch of offshore wind power (Saint Brieuc, Fécamp etc.). This dynamic is set to continue, with the launch on 18 October of a call for tenders (9.2 GW) aimed at contributing to the goals of 18 GW by 2035 and 45 GW by 2050. Floating wind should also grow thanks to Horizon Europe’s call for tenders for “Demonstrations of innovative floating wind concepts” open until 04 February 2025, and other European support such as the €10.82 billion planned over 20 years for the Oléron and Centre Manche projects.
While biogas is one of the only sectors to have achieved its MEP goals in 2023, things didn’t go so well for geothermal or solar thermal. Despite being of equal interest for both hot and cold application (air conditioning and cooling), geothermal to date provides just 1% of heat consumption in France (an ACTEE guide was published this year to “encourage regional public authority approaches”). Solar thermal recorded an 8% increase in 2023, but remains far from the 6 TWh set for the end of 2030 and 10 TWh for 2035. It does however offer considerable potential for both industry (combined solar systems) and residential (domestic solar water heating systems) as described by France’s Enerplan trade union, which is asking for a specific plan of action and emphasises that solar thermal should be able to tap into the same exemptions as PV in the area of soil artificialisation.
With 54.8 TWh produced in 2023 from the 2,600 hydroelectric power plants in operation, hydroelectric remains France’s second largest source of electrical energy after nuclear (1,022 TWh). It has delivered its national targets, achieving 99.1%. The Rhonergia dam project (37 MW capacity, which should produce 140 GWh annually) was finally abandoned at the end of August after several months of consultation.
Batteries for electric mobility, a real power move
The development of electric cars and heavy transport mobility solutions relies on a full-fledged battery industry. On this front, Europe is playing catch-up, seeking to reduce its dependency by launching the European Battery Alliance (a.k.a “Battery Airbus”) involving seven member States €6 billion in funding. The main idea is to create consortia among Member states and companies through various transnational projects, including the building of twenty to thirty gigafactories in Europe.
In France, four projects – ACC, Envision AESC, Verkor, Prologium – are already underway in Northern France’s “Battery Valley”. These projects have already received almost €17 billion of investment for extraction/refining, material production, and recycling facilities. Most are targeted at lithium-ion battery solutions. While these offer lightweight and ample storage density, they need nickel, manganese and cobalt (NMC) as well as graphite, in addition to lithium which due to its sensitivity to high temperatures also requires a cooling system.
Other solutions are being studied, such as intelligent batteries or batteries based on sodium, an abundant mineral that’s simple to use and recycle. ACC, a company which produces lithium-ion NMC batteries at Douvrin (France), should also start producing LFP (lithium, iron, phosphate) batteries on the future sites at Kaiserslautern (Germany) and Termoli (Italy) An alternative solution, solid batteries that employ a solid electrolyte based on polymers and thin lithium metal, is as yet still in its infancy.
Reconciling supply and demand for low carbon renewable hydrogen
A booming electrolysis industry
France’s hydrogen strategy aims in particular to install low-carbon hydrogen production capacity of 6.5 GW by 2030 and 10 GW by 2035. The only process able to produce hydrogen at large scale without CO2 emissions, water electrolysis in 2020 represented scarcely 6% of the volume of hydrogen produced, the rest deriving from natural gas (40%), co-production of petrochemicals (40%) and coal (14%). In fact, according to the UFE, the French Electricity Union, achieving the goal of 6.5 GW demands a 700-fold increase in the country’s electrolysis capacity within seven years as well as improvement of the energy yield and system power.
The market for hydrogen production from electrolysis has evolved toward large-scale high-capacity projects, with several “gigafactories” such as McPhy at Belfort, Elogen at Vendôme, John Cockerill at Aspach-Michelbach, Genvia at Béziers, and Gen-Hy at Montbéliard, most of these facilities(2) having annual capacity of up to 1 GW. While the supply of hydrogen through electrolysis is largely developed in France, it now has to find commercial opportunities and become competitive. The same is true at international scale where the total installed production capacity reached 31.7 GW at the end of 2023, representing seven times more than the estimated demand for 2024.
Fuel cells
Fuel cells convert the combination reaction of hydrogen with oxygen from the air into electricity and water, via the oxygen reduction reaction. These are mainly used in transport, but are also employed in portable applications, static electricity production, co-generation, as well as defence and space. Fuel cells offer numerous advantages (no CO2 emissions, noiseless, better performance than combustion engines, high modularity, resistant up to 1000°C) but depending on the energy source used they may also have limited life cycle, significant environmental footprint, and a high cost.
While the fuel cell market so far counts just a dozen or so players globally (Hyundai, Toyota, EKPO, PlugPower etc.), at the end of 2023 the Symbio joint venture – comprising Forvia, Michelin and Stellantis(3) – inaugurated a “gigafactory” at Saint-Fons (Rhône) aimed at heavier vehicle mobility (commercial vehicles, business fleets). Considered the largest integrated fuel cell production site in Europe, the SymphonHy factory aims to achieve production capacity of 20,000 units annually by 2028.
For its part, HDF Energy launched mass production of the PEM multi-MW fuel cell at its factory in Blanquefort (Gironde) at the start of 2024. These fuel cells are intended primarily for maritime and rail mobility, along with electricity generation for public power networks.
More recently, Symbio and Germany’s Schaeffler inaugurated in Haguenau (Bas-Rhin) the first site for the mass-production of metallic bipolar plates, which are strategic fuel cell components. The Innoplate joint venture should achieve annual capacity of 50 million units by 2030.
Carbon capture and storage seen as a last resort
Carbon capture and storage (CCS), or carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), describes an entire sector comprising the capture of CO2 at source, its transport and storage, and for CCUS its potential utilisation in certain types of products.
Capture at source primarily concerns highly emitting industries (cement, steel, aluminium, chemicals etc.) for which no reasonable alternative exists. Three main technologies are employed: capture using amines, oxycombustion and cryogenic capture. However, in a report published at the end of 2023, France’s High Council on Climate (HCC) advised that these three technologies rely on processes that are significant consumers of energy, water (2 to 4 m³ of water per tCO2 captured) and chemical inputs.
Carbon storage is achieved by injection into sedimentary basins (such as the Aquitaine or Parisian basin), into old hydrocarbon deposits, or into saline aquifers. According to the HCC, the use of carbon storage in France today is “conditional upon the availability of volumes and storage sites, for which actual potential is difficult to quantify due to lack of available data” and it also suffers from “the lack of a rigorous regulatory framework.”
Utilisation offers several opportunities: e-fuels, chemical intermediates, materials (e.g. concrete) or injection into some types of industrial products, into greenhouses or into the agrifood industry.
The World Resources Institute (WRI) points out that in contrast to other clean technologies such as solar PV, CCS/CCUS systems cannot be mass-produced as they need to be specifically designed for each industrial site, adding that CCS/CCUS projects are difficult to coordinate because the different process stages (the capture, transport, and sequestration of CO2) are often provided by different operators.
In April 2024, France elected to support the implementation of a CCS/CCUS industry, by launching a call for expressions of interest to allow around a hundred interested parties to be identified for the development of geological CO2 storage solutions. In addition, the call for tenders launched in July to support industry decarbonisation projects has itself also received around a hundred responses, among which CCS/CCUS projects have already been identified as relevant. Remember that the potential capture envisaged by the national strategy is 4 to 8 million tonnes of CO2 per annum by 2030, and 15 to 20 MtCO2 per annum by 2050.
The HCC’s position is that recourse to CCS/CCUS should as a priority be reserved for usages aimed at reducing residual emissions that cannot be suppressed at source, and complementing actions to minimise emissions and improve energy efficiency, so they should not be used to substitute either deep decarbonisation measures or the conservation/natural growth of forest and soil carbon sinks. For its part, the WRI recommends that CCS/CCUS be accompanied by a real reduction in the production and consumption of fossil fuels, and the roll-out of other decarbonisation options.
CCS/CCUS: today 0.1% of emissions, tomorrow 0.7%?
According to the WRI, by the end of 2023 CCS/CCUS were capturing almost 45 MtCO2 globally, that’s 0.1% of GHG emissions. If all he projects currently underway across the world (around forty) were operational, the total capacity would be 360 Mt of CO2 annually, or 0.7% of global emissions. In its February 2024 strategy, Europe itself aims to capture 280 MtCO2 in 2040 and up to 450 MtCO2 in 2050.
Two main challenges
As mentioned at the start of October by Fatih Birol, President of the International Energy Agency on the release of its annual report, “thirst for electricity is driven by industry (decarbonisation), electromobility, demand from AI and data centres (of which there are over 11,000 worldwide), and air conditioning.” This all promises a bright future for clean energy technologies. Two key challenges still remain to be addressed, however; raw materials dependency, and the adaptation of energy infrastructures to low-carbon energy sources.
Reducing dependency on rare or critical metals or minerals
A large part of new energy technologies requires critical or rare materials (metals or minerals). While the quantities per unit are small, when taking into account the production targets, demand is considerable. The solution comprises a mix of three complementary approaches: European mining/extraction; reducing demand for critical materials, particularly by substitute products; and developing the use of raw materials recovered from recycling. While much remains to be done on each of these, several recent advances should be noted.
Looking first at extraction, the Emili project led by Imérys aims to exploit an old kaolin mine at Echassières (Allier) to extract lithium. The site will provide enough to equip 70,000 vehicles annually. Other projects are based on lithium extraction from the waters of existing geothermal installations (e.g. BRGM and Lithium de France, or Eramet and Electricité de Strasbourg).
Looking next at substitution, in the hydrogen sector GenHy is working on AEM electrolysers equipped with nickel nanoparticle catalysts, replacing iridium and platinum. Similarly, in the course of 2024 the CNRS (the French National Centre for Scientific Research) announced the production of green hydrogen from an electrode of carbon and cobalt, a non-precious metal.
When it comes to recycling, while solutions exist for platinum compounds, rare earths, cobalt and nickel, they remain limited for other materials such as lithium, indium, antimony and germanium. The major steps of disassembly and separation remain complicated for products in which these materials are often mixed. Outside of dedicated companies – such as Weecycling in particular – interesting solutions are emerging in the treatment of hydrometallurgical sludges or of slags derived from pyrometallurgy of non-ferrous materials.
Adapting the energy infrastructure to new energy sources (networks, storage)
Renewable generation brings with it a new geographical distribution of electricity production sources, along with greater variability of incoming flows, to which heightened demand (mobility, heating, factory electrification etc.) must now also be added. Faced with this, RTE and Enedis are working on network modernisation and consolidation. For RTE, this translates into the re-sizing of some lines (for higher load), modernising transformer substations, constructing new lines (European interconnection, connection of offshore wind power etc.), digitisation of the network (particularly control and command stations) and the development of consumption flexibility, an aspect growing in importance as demonstrated by the action plan launched in mid-October(5). Enedis is planning to consolidate its network by 2040 through a €5 billion investment plan, prioritising the upgrading of substations linked to electric mobility and in particular those near motorways.
With regard to energy storage, new initiatives have also emerged in 2024. For example, Eiffage Energie Systèmes and Entech have created a joint venture dedicated to regional or national battery storage projects connected to the high-tension grid. In parallel with this, a European research programme (“Treasure”), launched in July, that brings together Newheat, Engie Solutions and the Pau Béarn Pyrénées communes consortium, aims to develop a system of large scale heat storage in pits(4)connected to the urban heat network.
1) As a reminder, France is committed to accelerating the development of renewable energies with the aim of achieving 33% renewable in 2030 and carbon neutrality in 2050.
2) Some, such as GenHy, are based on alkaline AEM (Anion Exchange Membrane) technology. Others, such as Elogen, employ PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) technology.
3) Symbio has seen phenomenal growth since its launch as SymbioFCell (a spin-off from CEA Grenoble) and its first appearances at Pollutec show in the early 2010s.
4) Or “Pit Thermal Energy Storage: PTES.
5) Launching of a plan of action, publication of the flexibilities barometer and the launching of the new joint brand Flex Ready by Think Smartgrids, RTE, Enedis, Gimelec and Ignes on 16 October 2024.
