ENERGY TRANSITION

Energy transition: ENGIE’s 2020 Dashboard

By ENGIE - 22 October 2020 - 17:27

To mark World Energy Day, ENGIE is publishing its 2020 Energy Transition Dashboard. In this reference document, the Group provides an overview of the energy situation in France and internationally for the year 2020. It also provides its analysis for the implementation of the energy transition. 

 

 

 

New report on energy transition

 

For the past 10 years, ENGIE has been publishing its “A World of Energy” report, a reference document providing an annual overview of the energy situation in France and around the world. 

This year, the Group is evolving the concept and has produced its first “Energy Transition Dashboard”, the aim being to optimise the support it provides its stakeholders – companies, public authorities, employees and citizens – to help them understand the energy transition and implement concrete actions to achieve it. 

Created by our experts within the Group on the basis of external, objective and reliable data, the Dashboard should make it possible to measure the progress of the transition in relation to long-term climate ambitions, a crucially important challenge in line with ENGIE's strategy of positioning all its activities on a carbon-neutral trajectory. 

Impacts of Covid-19 on energy in 2020

 

The Dashboard starts by presenting the year's main macroeconomic indicators, marked by the consequences of the Covid-19 epidemic, and the resulting impact on energy consumption and production in France and worldwide. Gas, oil, renewable wind and solar energy... Each energy source is examined in detail. Among the notable facts, the report establishes an anticipated 7% drop in world primary energy demand in 2020, a significant drop in oil consumption (-9%) – a logical consequence of the reduction in mobility – and an 8% drop in coal consumption due to the decrease in electricity production by thermal power stations. On the other hand, renewable energies have been much more resilient.
 

 

 

The 2020 Dashboard, barometer of the energy transition

 

Based on this state of play, the Dashboard outlines the evolution of the energy transition and presents different levers to meet environmental requirements. This information can be found primarily in the chapters on “CO2 & climate” and “Decarbonization”. The authors of the report explain, in particular, that the sharp drop in CO2 emissions seen in 2020 due to the health crisis is likely to be quickly wiped out, unless recovery plans favour green investments. 
 

 

KEY FIGURE

CO2 accounts for 83% of greenhouse gas emissions.

 

However, massive economic recovery plans are still largely based on fossil energies. Few governments have chosen the “green recovery” path, apart from some EU countries. ENGIE supports this path because, firstly, it makes it possible to contain the rise in global temperatures (maximum limit of +2°C by the year 2100) and, secondly, it offers greater potential than traditional recovery plans. Examples in France with the government plan for the thermal renovation of buildings and the development of low-carbon public transport (electric, green hydrogen), and in Europe with the increasing installation of renewable energies. Finally, this green recovery generates growth, innovation and job creation.

 

 

For a transition towards a carbon-neutral economy

 

In conclusion, ENGIE suggests two paths towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions in its Energy Transition Dashboard: reduced energy consumption on the one hand – in particular through energy efficiency and increased sobriety – and the decarbonization of electricity production and consumption on the other – primarily through electric and gas renewable energies (biomethane, green hydrogen).