To contain global warming and greenhouse gas emissions, a radical diversification of energy production should be implemented that extends beyond electricity, in particular by decarbonizing heating and cooling networks and mobility

Currently, 80% of the global energy system is based on fossil resources (coal, oil and gas). The EU aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 40% 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
• Design a new family of high-performance nuclear reactors, less expensive, and with optimized time to market

Digital technologies and data exploitation will profoundly change each 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 every evening an assessment of the complete economic performance of his plant, and the energy management authorities can optimize the day to day management of resources and the purchase of energy on the markets. These new challenges give a new and decisive role to the engineer at the heart of this transformation.

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 the energy transition, new exploration, operations and recycling (at controlled cost) technologies will have to be implemented to extend access to these resources and optimise their consumption.

The United Nations anticipate a rise in the global population to 9.7 billion inhabitants by 2050. It will be necessary to triple the extraction of materials (namely180 billion tonnes/year) to meet this demand.

Challenges:

• Develop new exploration and operations technologies at controlled costs (e.g.: deep sea)
• Meet demand related to new uses (e.g.: cobalt/electric vehicles)
• Develop new waste sorting and recycling solutions