Prospective bottom-up modelling of industry: what place for electrification in a cost optimised trajectory ?

This paper focuses on evaluating the place of electricity in a cost-optimised trajectory of industrial emissions reduction in France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom (altogether called EU- 5 +1) for three key sectors: steel, chemistry, and cement. Authors used an open-source industry-centered bottom-up model and open-source data to achieve this goal. The results show that in the framework studied, the combined use of bioenergy, electricity and carbon capture is economically optimal for lowering emissions. Even in a higher electricity price scenario, electricity consumption increases by 185%. However, competitive electricity prices are associated with an increase in consumption of up to 366% (in the case of a fossil phase-out) as well as with a greater decrease in emissions. Finally, the associated connection capacity is also expected to increase in line with consumption according to minimum power estimates. At the scale of France (resp. EU- 5 +1), in this paper’s reference scenario, this could represent around to 14 GW (resp. 54 GW) of minimum additional capacity.