ALTEN - New nuclear engineering - Energy automation - Digitalisation

Sectors

Energy & Environment

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.

In China, the national “Dual Carbon” goals (carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060) are driving a massive transformation of the energy sector. The country is accelerating its shift towards a low-carbon energy mix by investing heavily in renewable energies such as wind, solar, hydrogen, and biomass, while also advancing the development of new nuclear technologies like small modular reactors (SMRs). These transitions are creating strong demand for engineering and R&D capabilities in the coming decade.

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 energy is intermittent, as its generation is significantly affected by fluctuating weather conditions. Therefore, energy storage technology, as a key component of the energy transition, will become a critical issue in China’s efforts to achieve its “Dual Carbon”goals over the next 25 years.

ALTEN, Player in the Energy Transition

In China, the national “Dual Carbon” goals are driving a profound transformation of the energy landscape. ALTEN actively supports this transition by partnering with leading players across nuclear energy, renewable energy, oil & gas, and energy storage sectors. Through its high-quality engineering design, project management, and digital transformation solutions, ALTEN helps clients accelerate their shift toward low-carbon and high-efficiency operations.

What Are the Market Trends in the Energy & Environment Industry?

Energy transition

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). China has elevated the "Dual Carbon" goals to the national top-level strategy, aiming to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

Challenges:

Financing the development of renewable energies (wind, photovoltaic, biogas, hydraulic, etc.)

Integrating energy storage solutions to overcome the intermittency of renewable energy production

Designing new families of high-performance nuclear reactors, less expensive, and with optimized time to market

Digital & Intelligent Network

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.

Challenges:

Deploying architecture and control systems in existing plants

Ensuring cybersecurity of the connected energy system

Connecting all transport networks to the delivery point

Improve environmental impact

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

Functional Sectors Covered by ALTEN