François-Xavier de Froment, Managing Director Sustainable Mobility, gives us a rundown on the rapidly changing sustainable mobility market.
What is the current situation in the sustainable mobility market?
François-Xavier de Froment: Today, the decarbonization of transport is a major challenge that can no longer be ignored – transport is responsible for 24% of global CO2 emissions. As a result, the sustainable mobility market is growing fast, attracting attention from not only large energy producers like ENGIE, but also players in the oil industry, car manufacturers and the startups that are raising funds. All, of course, at different stages of maturity. The electric car market in particular is booming. This is likely to bring about a 35% increase in electric vehicle charging stations in Europe and North America every year until 2030. In France and Europe in particular, the scale-up is massive.
What role does ENGIE play in the sustainable mobility market?
FXF: We now operate along many links in the sustainable mobility value chain. We offer a mix of low-carbon fuels - renewable electricity, renewable hydrogen, biogas – along with their appropriate charging solutions. We provide our customers with a comprehensive offer to step up their decarbonisation processes.
The fuels in our mix can be chosen according to our customers' needs and profiles: natural gas (NGV), including biogas (bio-NGV), for heavy-duty transport and long distances; hydrogen for intensive and heavy mobility; and electric, which is better suited to light vehicles, with fast and ultra-fast charging stations.
Our aim is to create regional networks to speed up the decarbonization of mobility solutions across an entire area. Accelerating, seizing growth opportunities and scaling up - that's where the challenge lies. This is one of the first steps on our roadmap. The next will be to provide long-term, high-quality service through available infrastructure, green energy supply and digital management of the customer experience.
"Offering infrastructure and energy solutions adapted to customer uses. This is one of our key differentiators!"
| Electric mobility is a driving force |
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In 2022, we won several contracts for electric vehicle charging stations, particularly in France and Belgium, for:
In Singapore, ENGIE and its partner ComfortDelGro have been selected to install charging stations for electric vehicles in over 200 public car parks as part of the nation’s initiative to ramp up charging infrastructure islandwide. In the USA, especially in California, we are providing numerous communities, such as cities, educational institutions etc., with electric charging infrastructure and fleet charging management capabilities directly connected to solar energy production and energy storage on site. All in all, this represents more than 10.000 charging points, most of them with 15 to 20-year contracts. |
What are our most remarkable achievements?
FXF: The contract we just won in Belgium is a great success story. Also, we will soon be one of the top 3 fast-charge providers on French motorways as we will be supplying 60 motorway service stations between now and June 2023.
| Belgium: a large-scale electric mobility project! |
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When it comes to hydrogen, we have accomplished a number of regional projects, such as HYGO in Brittany with Michelin, Hyport in Toulouse and Hympulsion in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. We are also conducting the DMSE project in Dijon. This involves replacing diesel with hydrogen as fuel for the city's buses and waste collection vehicles. We plan to expand the initiative to all 175 buses and 50 trucks managed by Dijon Métropole and, on a wider scale, to reproduce the business model in other regions and with other partners.
We are continuing to invest in NGV , particularly bio-NGV , by installing new facilities to maintain our position as a major player in the market, with over 100 refuelling stations in operation.
We are convinced that it is by providing a mix of sustainable fuels that we will step up our Net Zero Carbon transformation.