Will certain districts or certain towns end up going without gas? This is the question raised by the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) in a report on the future of gas infrastructure, published on Tuesday 4 April.
The objectives of carbon neutrality in 2050 will profoundly modify the energy mix, with the rise in power of electricity and a drop in the use of gas, says CRE, which has worked on three scenarios. Two were made by Ademe and are not favorable to gas. The third, which comes from the network managers, is a little more. It should be noted, however, that the gas would only be produced in France, mainly in biomethane.
Expected drop in demand
But in any case, the decline in gas demand is significant. In the low hypothesis, it would decrease by almost two-thirds. In the high hypothesis (that of the gas companies), it would decrease by a third.
Needs would fall in both industry and residential. Gas consumption in housing could thus drop from 168 TWh today to 24 TWh in 2050, in other words not much, mainly to supply individual boilers in the collective. According to the median scenario, which does not count on a profound change in lifestyles, gas in the residential sector would represent 44 TWh.
Developing heating networks
This drop in consumption could lead to the shutdown of gas supply in certain areas, if there are not enough users. The CRE report evokes it with tweezers. ” Locally, depending on the configurations, certain assets could be abandoned in a proportion that should remain very limited “, our prudent report, which cites the case of Grenoble where the development of the heating network has already reduced the number of gas consumers.
The president of the CRE, for her part, is more direct. ” It is not necessary to maintain a gas network just for cooking,” emphasizes Emmanuelle Wargon, who puts forward a logic of optimizing infrastructures. But according to her, any gas bans can only be done at the local level.
No major network changes
Because overall, the reduction in gas demand should only have a marginal impact on the network. For transport, approximately 1,100 km of pipelines out of 37,000 km currently could be removed in 2050, as well as 7 compressor stations, notes the CRE. France will indeed remain an important transit country for supplying our neighbours.
For distribution, capacity reductions should also be minimal. But the GRDF network would nevertheless be called upon to change in depth, with the proliferation of biomethane injection sites. The storage sites could also be less numerous and some would be intended to receive hydrogen.
Spread the costs
The amounts needed to adapt the networks to the production of carbon-free gas are assessed by CRE ” between 6 and 9.7 billion euros by 2050, i.e. between 200 and 300 million per year “. An effort “ quite manageable “, estimates Emmanuelle Wargon, recalling that today 1.3 billion euros are already invested each year in the network.
But in the long term, a central question remains. How to finance infrastructure maintenance when there will be fewer users? No answer for the time being, even if it will be necessary very quickly to ask the question of the evolution of the tariffs, judges the CRE.