(Montel) Gas to be largely carbon free by 2050 – Engie CEO

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Giving up on gas to rely only electrical power is “very difficult to consider,” the head of French power utility Engie said during the group’s annual general meeting (AGM) late on Wednesday, but it will be largely carbon-free by mid-century.

“We are convinced that gas will remain a crucial element in the energy transition,” Engie CEO Catherine MacGregor said, citing as an example that to meet peak demand on a winter evening in France solely with electricity, an extra 150 GW of capacity would need to be built – doubling the existing power network.

“It is very difficult to consider,” she added. “On the other hand… this gas will be largely decarbonised by 2050.”

Green transition

In February, Engie said it planned in 2030 to reach around 10 TWh of annual biomethane production, which represents about 3% of Europe’s 380 TWh target. The group also eyes an approximate 4 GW hydrogen production capacity by that date.

“We are developing this objective in the countries in which we are present, mainly France today,” Chairman Jean-Pierre Clamadieu said. “Beyond 2030, we are not just talking about biogas, but also about hydrogen.”

“What is necessary for us to be able to develop hydrogen on a European scale is, first of all, appropriate regulations,” he explained. “Today, regulations concerning the use of gas infrastructures in France, for example … do not allow the use of these infrastructures to transit, store, discharge hydrogen.”

Diversifying supply with US LNG

Engie’s chief sustainability officer, Julia Maris, pointed out that tensions on the gas market against the backdrop of Russia’s war in Ukraine had led the firm to speed up its supply diversification strategy.

“We had a form of imperative urgency to … refill gas stocks, and in this context, these contracts were extended,” she said, regarding deals with suppliers such as the US.

“We estimate that the over-emission of this gas does not exceed 10%, and all of the group’s 2030 decarbonisation objectives have taken these volumes of gas into account,” she said. “There is no risk that these supplies will make us exceed our trajectories.”

Since the end of 2021, around 60% of US LNG exported to France was produced by Cheniere Energy, particularly present in the Permian Basin, where the large oil and gas wells make over 90% of gas through fracking, a technique banned in France since 2011 for environmental reasons, according to investigative reporting NGO Disclose.