Energy & Environment
Adapting to energy transition challenges
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Navigating the challenges of decarbonisation
The energy transition and collective awareness of climate change has highlighted the need to shift the world’s energy towards a low-carbon energy mix, favoring renewable energies.
According to the International Energy Agency, fossil fuel shares (coal, oil, natural gas) in global energy production have remained close to 80% for decades and will fall to 73% by 2030.
The transition to renewable energies (wind, hydrogen, biomass, solar…) is underway. Governments and businesses are investing heavily in renewable energies to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change. The programs for green hydrogen are currently at the heart of R&D investments and will place a considerable burden on the engineering professions over the next ten years.
Facing the storage of renewable energies
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), it is desirable for 90% of the world’s electricity to come from renewable energies by 2050, whereas today we’re below the 30% mark.
However, renewable energies are intermittent, as their production depends on unpredictable weather conditions. Energy storage as part of the energy transition is therefore a major challenge for the next 25 years.
ALTEN, player in the energy transition
With more than 3,000 engineers around the world involved in energy transition, ALTEN has been working with key players in the sector on all major projects across the entire energy value chain, positioning itself as an end-to-end service provider – from research and development to industrial methods, supply chain management, digitalisation. ALTEN participates in large-scale strategic projects with important engineering components in the fields of renewable, oil & gas and energy storage.
Facing the demand of specialized engineers in the Energy’s field and the expected performance, ALTEN has implemented a global strategy, including organisational aspects such as the creation of a Center of Excellence (ACE) based in particular on the ALTEN community of experts.
ALTEN in the Energy & Environment industry
317 M€
2022 turnover
3,000
consultants
30
countries
4
domains of expertise Energy & Environment: Renewable and energy storage, Oil & Gas, Utilities and Equipment
What are the market trends in the Energy & Environment industry?
To contain global warming and greenhouse gas emissions, a radical diversification of energy production should be implemented that extends beyond electricity; particularly, the decarbonisation of heating and cooling networks and the adoption of sustainable mobility (hydrogen solutions).
In 2023, 80% of the global energy system relies on fossil resources (coal, oil, and gas). The EU aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 55% by 2030 in relation to the 1990 levels.
Challenges:
- Financing the development of renewable energies (photovoltaic, wind, biogas etc.)
- Integrate energy storage solutions to overcome the intermittency of renewable energy production
Digital technology and data exploitation has profoundly changed every link in the energy chain. The production engineer can now monitor and correct the drift of his processes in real time, the plant manager can obtain a daily assessment of the complete economic performance of his plant, and the energy management authorities may now optimize the day-to-day management of their resources and the purchase of energy on the markets. At the heart of this transformation, these new challenges offer a new and decisive role to engineers by improving general performance.
For example, intelligent demand management systems could provide approximately 185 GW of energy flexibility worldwide. This would save €270 billion in investment in new electricity infrastructure between 2016 and 2040.
Challenges:
- Deploy the architecture and control systems in existing plants
- Ensure cybersecurity of the connected energy system
- Connect all transport networks to the delivery point
Economic and demographic growth is placing increasing pressure on energy, water and mineral resources. In parallel with energy transition, new exploration, operations and recycling (at controlled costs), technology will have to be implemented to extend access to these resources and optimise their consumption.
The United Nations anticipates a rise in the global population of up to 9.7 billion inhabitants by 2050. It will be necessary to triple the extraction of materials (namely 180 billion tonnes/year) to meet this growing demand.
Challenges:
- Meeting demands related to new energy uses (e.g.: cobalt/electric vehicles)
- Developing new waste sorting and recycling solutions
ALTEN Value Proposition
ALTEN’s functional sectors
- Hydraulic
- Wind-power
- Solar energy
- Bio-masse
- Storage
- Hydrogen
- Exploration Production
- Petrochemicals
- Refinery
- Storage
- Transport
- Distribution
- Smart Grid
- Retail
- Electrical & Electronic Equipment
- Heavy components
- Turbogenerator, rotated machines
- Boilers
- Manufacturing Engineering
OUR CLIENTS
Energy suppliers
EDF, Engie, Total, Shell, ENI, Air Liquide, Vattenfal, Iberdrola, Orano
Energy equipment manufacturers
GE, Siemens Energy, Schneider Electric, TechnipFMC, Technip Energies, Framatome…