ENERGY
TRANSITION

Moving towards a low-carbon energy system guaranteeing vital access to energy for everyone.

Producing low-carbon energy on a massive scale

Cutting energy-related CO2 emissions, one of the main causes of climate change, is now an objective widely shared by governments and has already been the focus of extensive planning and scenario building among international bodies. One key means of achieving this is to end our huge dependence on fossil fuels by massively adopting other energy sources such as renewables (hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal), nuclear and biomass, and by recovering and harnessing carbon in the form of synthetic fuel.

We work on all these methods of producing energy and combine them to support the move towards low-carbon systems. We are world-renowned experts in hydropower, and among the pioneers of solar photovoltaics and the conversion of thermal power plants to burn biomass. We are deeply committed to the expansion of wind and geothermal energy, and actively contributing to maximising the performance and safety of the French nuclear industry. We are also involved in the burgeoning development of green hydrogen production and technologies to recover and recycle carbon from various industry sectors – chemicals and steel in particular.

Distributing vital energy to everyone

Access to modern, sustainable and reliable energy services is now almost as essential as access to water in contemporary society, and is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in the United Nations Global Compact. In 2021, nearly 750 million people around the world were still living without electricity, and more than 2.4 billion were unable to use non-polluting cooking methods.

We have been contributing for decades to the development of power grids and transnational interconnection infrastructure, particularly in Africa, where most of the needs are now concentrated. For regions that are difficult to connect to the grid, we design and implement hybrid production systems (largely based on solar photovoltaics) and local mini-grids. We help to perfect and automate such networks in order to make them more stable, increase their electricity storage capacity and equip them to manage efficiently the multiple variable flows arising from the renewable energy boom.

In Europe, we are also involved in extending and upgrading district heating and cooling networks, which are highly interesting alternatives to individual heating systems. Here too, we harness all our expertise to build efficient, automated distribution facilities using energy mixes comprising high proportions of renewables.

Reducing and decarbonising our consumption

Global energy consumption has increased almost continuously over the past century, in line with population growth and the emergence of new uses, and is still rising. This raises a large number of questions in the face of today’s efforts to decarbonise the energy sector. How can we dispense with fossil fuels while meeting growing demand for energy? Increasing low-carbon production will most probably not be enough. Curbing certain types of consumption therefore seems to be an essential way forward, and this will require major efforts to both boost energy efficiency and promote conservation.

We have developed a systemic approach to energy in order to help our clients draw up efficient and sustainable strategies, starting from their practices and needs and then working with them to examine all the production, transmission and distribution facilities to be built or optimised. We have acquired extensive expertise and designed a range of solutions to improve the energy efficiency of buildings, urban infrastructure and industrial facilities. We make binding commitments to reduce the energy consumed by property portfolios via energy performance contracts. We implement large-scale operations to optimise public lighting. We are involved in many projects to recover unavoidable energy, whether heat or gas, and also offer a range of solutions for generating energy from waste. These are just some of the actions we are taking to promote the smarter and more sparing use of energy.