Wasting renewables: Where is Europe in the race for clean energy transition?

euronews (in English)

Europe is not on track with its energy transition goals, but is in a good position to succeed in reaching them, French multinational energy management group Schneider Electric tells Euronews Business.

Transcript

00:00So Europe is not on track, and no region is on track for the moment.

00:12Now Europe is best positioned to succeed.

00:15So it's probably ahead of the other regions, but nobody is on track.

00:21What we need now to work, and there has been a lot of work all across the planet and generation.

00:27The big work that needs to be achieved now is to transform the demand side.

00:31In buildings, which is already engaged and where Europe has taken some important laws

00:37of renovation, of what we call the Green Building Act, right?

00:42Of course, transportation, as we speak, we are not at the right speed of electrification

00:48of transportation, but Europe again is at the forefront with clear commitments.

00:54And last but not least, process electrification.

00:58In the energy crisis, it has really been a wake-up call for the industrial people to

01:03say, well, if I keep burning gas, I will be in trouble.

01:07So I think it's accelerating as we speak.

01:09Are we on the right track?

01:11No in Europe.

01:12Are we well positioned?

01:13Probably yes.

01:19We should expect a world where everything is electrified with digital capability, automatized

01:26control, and that you don't need to take care about it, right?

01:29So you come at home, you plug your car, if solar panels are producing, your car is charged.

01:35If they are not producing, you don't charge it because eventually you don't need much

01:40more kilometers.

01:42So that's typically the world of tomorrow, is a world that is fully electric, but where

01:47you don't really take care about the best usage of the production, which is a production

01:54based on renewable.

02:01Let's take mobility, which is probably the most easy place.

02:05If you charge your car in not peak hour, you make a savings that is above 50% on your bill

02:13of charging the car.

02:15Of course, before you were buying gas at the petrol station, now you buy electricity

02:20at home.

02:21So your bill at home will increase, right?

02:23That's a fact.

02:24But if you compare with the price you were paying the petrol before, that's much cheaper.

02:44The building renovation for the moment is at a pace of 4% per year max, and in many

02:51countries it's 2%.

02:52So that's where if you calculate the time it takes, okay, you say, okay, it probably

02:57will take 100 years.

02:59What we're really advocating is an acceleration of deployment of new technologies that are

03:05not necessarily a heavy lifting on all building, but just with new technologies, automation,

03:12a combination of automation and electrification, you already can reduce the emission of a building

03:19of 30%.

03:20So and this doesn't take years to apply.

03:30You equip your home with solar panels, you buy an electric car and you automatize what

03:35needs to be automatized so that, for example, your car is charging when you have solar panel

03:39production, right?

03:41So then the cost of charging your car becomes zero because you're a prosumer, right?

03:46In this case, the return of investment for you will be 7 to 10 years max, including the

03:52investment in solar panels.

04:00What we know today is that we've got gigawatt hour of renewable installed capacities that

04:06are not flowing through the grid because either a problem of legislation, either sometime

04:12a lack of reinforcement of the grid.

04:15I could not give you a percentage.

04:16We try to estimate that, but we know it's significant, right?

04:22It's gigawatts that are stranded, not permanently, of course, because it's moving, but that are

04:28at a point of time not able to be connected to the grid.

04:37Between those renewable production, centralized generation, and the demand side, you need

04:42to reinforce the grid, and the grid needs basically to double in its capacity to flow

04:49electrical power.

04:51So this requires reinforcement of the grid.

04:54As we speak, it's starting.

04:56We see the acceleration, but the doubling of the investment is not yet operational.

05:04That's not what we see as a supplier of technology.

05:07We see an increase, but not yet a doubling, and we know that in the equation, it needs

05:12to double.

05:13So a lot of discussions with the profession and with the utility customers to see how

05:20we could build an accelerated path for reinforcement of the grid.

Category

Transcript

Recommended