RTE’s fight against climate change
Fighting the climate change
RTE, an instrumental player in the energy transition
By modernising its grids to integrate renewable energy sources and accommodate new uses (e.g. charging of close to 4.8 million vehicles by 2028), RTE is supporting the objectives of France’s low-carbon strategy (SNBC), which seeks to achieve carbon neutrality in France by 2050. With grid modernisation plans focusing on sobriety and rationalised flow management, the company is aligned with this nation-wide effort. This is how RTE is helping to meet the objectives of the multi-annual energy plan (PPE), which – by 2035 – intends to halve the level of emissions caused by power generation.
Becoming resilient to climate change
Hurricanes, winter storms and cold spells on the one end of the scale…. heatwaves, fires, floods and rising water levels on the other. Global warming will bring about increasingly severe weather conditions. These events will affect the balance between electricity supply and demand (consumption levels and locations, effects on generation facilities) as well as affecting grid infrastructure.
The next projected supply estimate being drawn up in conjunction with stakeholders, and which determines potential supply-demand scenarios, will provide a forecast of scenarios up until 2050. It will include climate-change predictions based on scenarios developed with Météo France using the assumptions of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (GIEC) .
Furthermore, RTE is building structures that are designed to last for several decades (50 years on average). While it is thought that the grid has been able to withstand storms since making investments over a 15-year period to strengthen it mechanically, infrastructure vulnerabilities must be identified, particularly with regard to heat and water, so that the appropriate upgrades can be made. In 2019, RTE therefore decided to start work on its "resilience" project, also based on climate-change scenarios running up to 2050. RTE is currently working together with asset-management experts, data scientists and climate specialists to calculate the impact of extreme-weather events on its structures.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report and Transition Plan
In 2023, RTE is one of the first French companies and one of the first European electricity transmission system operators to submit a "transition plan" outlining its four-year emissions trajectory up to 2026, in addition to its 2022 greenhouse gas emissions report (BEGES).
A company's "transition plan" provides an opportunity to complement the measurement of its emissions (as published in its BEGES) with actions aimed at reducing them, along with targets aligned with the objectives of the national low-carbon strategy. The publication of a transition plan has been mandatory since this year.
RTE has long been a pioneer in publishing its emissions. As such, RTE includes in its management report the annual statements of direct and indirect emissions related to its own activities (Scopes 1 and 2) and also publishes comprehensive BEGES reports, which include indirect upstream and downstream emissions (Scope 3), every four years since 2008 on the ADEME website.
According to the 2022 BEGES, RTE's emissions have decreased by 4% compared to 2018, amounting to 1,022 kilotons of CO₂ equivalent.
