The energy transition will need a wide variety of different technologies

This year's edition is quite exceptional, in the sense that it looks back on the technologies that were identified in earlier editions to assess their evolution. Some of these technologies have matured and are today more relevant, while others have been disappointing or have seen their development slowed down.

Jan Mertens (Chief Science Officer) and Elodie Le Cadre (Lead Scientific Advisor) have been working together with many ENGIE experts across different entities on this document.

Why publish this summary? How did they proceed? Here are some of the questions we asked them.

Publishing such a report on emerging technologies is rarely done by an industrial player like ENGIE. Why are you doing it and what is your objective?

Jan Mertens : 

Our main goal is to inform a wide audience about what we think are new emerging sustainable technologies that could make a difference in the future. We present emerging solutions in the field of energy in the most educational way possible. 
This does not mean that all the technologies we present are currently part of ENGIE's strategy, but simply that it is important to stay informed in a sector that is changing very quickly.
For example, in the document we talk about nuclear fusion, which today is not a strategic area for ENGIE. However, as scientific experts, we need to keep an eye on this possibly game-changing technology.
What is unique in our approach is that we relay the opinion of industrial experts. It is this combination of scientific and academic expertise with specific industrial expertise that makes our report different and unique. ENGIE does not position itself as a consultant, but as a player in these technological solutions.

Elodie Le Cadre : 

The main goal of our document is to explain clearly how these technologies work and why we think that they will be relevant for the future of our energy transition.
Our first target audience are the ENGIE employees, with the intention of raising their skills on these subjects.
We seek to get the support of the general public for certain solutions by leading them to understand what we are talking about.
This report is also an invitation to collaborate, which is why we also publish an external version of it: we are targeting potential partners. Our “leit motiv” in this document is: “the challenge is too complex and too large to fight alone. We invite our peers, whether energy companies or not, to work with us. »
By explaining the technologies that we think will emerge, we offer a starting point for a discussion. We don't just list these new technologies, we explain what they are.
Of course, we also target talents who would like to join us to help mature these solutions. Moreover, we are going to present this report in universities, to convince students that we need their skills and creativity to help bring these technologies to the market as soon as possible.

What concrete results did you notice due to this popularization and explanation work you carried out for several years?

Jan Mertens:

We have intensified our efforts on some of the technologies, and this has led some companies or research labs to contact us to collaborate.
This approach also gives credibility to ENGIE's scientific and industrial expertise externally. For example, Europe finances collaborative research and industrial projects between industries and universities. ENGIE is perceived as one of the leaders in the energy transition, and has been quite successful in winning some EU funded projects, which are highly competitive. We have succeeded in convincing the outside world of the seriousness of our ambition and our desire to innovate. This is a clearly noticeable change over the past 5 years.
This document is of course not solely responsible for this change in image, but we hope it contributes to it.

Elodie Le Cadre

ENGIE is perceived as a supplier of sustainable and innovative solutions for smart and sustainable cities and we have been quite successful, together with our partners, in convincing the territories to partner with us.
We have noticed that this document also serves as a support for our business developers to start conversations upstream of commercial approaches. It does not necessarily immediately bring business, but it contributes to raise the Group's image with respect to its innovation capabilities which is increasingly a differentiating factor in winning contracts.

Is there a technology you particularly believe in?

Jan Mertens

We cannot name just one, we will need many different technologies!

Elodie Le Cadre

There is no “miracle” technological solution to achieve carbon neutrality, in particular because of the heterogeneity of the territories.
Take the example of Direct Air Capture (DAC), a technology that aims to capture CO2 from the air by bringing it into contact with a chemical molecule. It can then be extracted for storage or reuse. It is a process equivalent to photosynthesis, where plants have the ability to extract CO2 from the air and transform it into sugar.
On CO2, there are two issues:
- Reduce our emissions
- And, as we already emitted too much, it will have to be captured from the atmosphere to avoid going beyond 2°C of global warming.
CO2 is a diffuse pollution: the consequences of CO2 pollution in France have consequences everywhere else. Everyone must get down to carbon reduction, but not all territories have the same characteristics and the same assets to do so. Direct Air Capture requires a lot of space and green energy, it will obviously be easier to implement these technologies in territories where space and renewable energy is abundant.

Which technology do you think is the most interesting for ENGIE?

Jan Mertens

Here again, we will need many technologies linked to our 3 pathways towards carbon neutrality (and the order is important): 
1- Continue to consume less to do the same thing (or more): this is energy efficiency
2- Electrify everything that can be electrified using renewable electricity, far beyond just our cars. Some industrial processes as well as some (lighter) mobility applications can easily be electrified and it makes most sense to do this using renewable electricity. 
3- However, for some industrial as well as certain (heavy) mobility applications, molecules will be needed. Also for long term storage of energy as well as for long term transport of energy, molecules will be needed due to the low energy density of batteries for instance. These molecules can be produced from electricity, examples are: hydrogen, methane, ammonia, methanol, …We can then transport these just as we do today with fossil oil and gas. But instead of extracting and transporting fossil oil and gas, we synthesize green molecules using solar or wind energy. Of course, you might retort that we will not have enough electricity to electrify what is electrifiable and on top to produce all these molecules. Actually, in Europe, we will probably not have enough renewable energy to do this and we will have to import (parts of) it, just as we import fossil energy today. In Chile, the Middle East, Australia, … there are plenty of resources to produce renewable electricity at a very low cost. The challenge is to transport this energy from producing regions to consuming regions and for this we will again need molecules.

Elodie Le Cadre

Also at ENGIE, it will be essential to take into account the heterogeneity of territories to imagine the future of energy. We will still need to transport energy – renewable energy – over long distances. (Green) gas is one of the essential technologies for the future. It can also be produced from electricity and CO2 captured from the air. (see the article Pour la Science Why we need carbon to decarbonize. )
We have a good vision of how to decarbonize the transport and electricity sector, but we still need to come up with solutions for industry which is a major emitter of CO2.

How did you go about making this edition?

Jan  Mertens

The selection of technologies is  not done using quantitative criteria, it is rather based on our intimate conviction combining our scientific and industrial expertise, our gut feeling if you wish. We did not count the number of publications, the number of patents filed, … If we had done that, we would mainly talk about digital technologies since this is the field that moves the fastest!. 
This edition is unique in our approach of revisiting previously identified technologies and assessing where they stand. Why did we do this? To show that it is difficult to bet on the future of a technology but also important not to exclude them without giving them a chance and pilot/test them!