Energy futures 2050 - Main results, October 2021: Executive summary + Full report + Answers to the RTE's public consultation on study scoping and hypotheses + Contributions of organisations + Collective personal contributions + Individual personal contributions

After a presentation of the general problematic (phasing out fossil energies), this huge publication reports a study which aims at defining the best electric power system to phase out fossil energies and to reach carbon neutrality in 2050. For this purpose, in a first part, it analyses and discusses in a detailed way the various possible orientations which concern consumption (energy efficiency, decrease of energy consumption but increase of electric power consumption, acceleration of the country's re-industrialisation through process electrification), the transformation of the energy production and consumption mix (development of renewable energies), economic aspects (relevance of the construction of new nuclear reactors, competitiveness of renewable energies, development of steering means, network resizing), system and technologies (creation of a low-carbon hydrogen system, technological challenges to reach carbon neutrality, transformation of the electric power system), space and environment, and more general aspects. The report then discusses the necessary structural evolution of power demand (or consumption) to decarbonize the economy, the different perspectives of evolution of electricity production (renewable and nuclear), the different possible scenarios of combinations between production and consumption, the different national strategies to reach the European objective of carbon neutrality, the guarantee of the security of supply in scenarios of carbon neutrality relying on renewable energies, the relationship between climate and electric power system (an increased sensitivity due to climate change and to the mix evolution), the role of hydrogen and of couplings between gas and electricity sectors, the importance of networks (significant needs of new infrastructures). It also analyses the economic aspect (assessment of scenarios' costs in order to compare the different transition options), and the environmental aspect. Answers made by RTE to a public consultation are provided, and numerous contributions are then proposed by actors related to the energy sector (companies, professional bodies, associations, and so on), with questions about specific contents of the report