Alternative renewable energy solutions
Alternative renewable energy solutions
Climate neutrality by 2050
Although the 2015 Paris Agreement set the priority of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5°C, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) goes much further. Faced with the emergency, the European Union has set the target of achieving zero net emissions and climate neutrality by 2050.
A complex and engaging endeavour. Many local authorities and companies want to take up the challenge, but it involves drastically reducing greenhouse emissions.
One of the priorities is therefore the development of renewable energies across the whole scope of possibility: geothermal energy, biogas, biomethane, hydrogen and hydroelectricity solutions.
Working towards an energy mix, choosing adequate solutions
Diversifying the energy sources enables us to meet many challenges: availability, response to the intermittence of certain energies, reasoned choices in light of supply sources close to places of consumption. Equans is working alongside its clients to implement diversified renewable energies and more suitable solutions in light of their need and the resources available on the most local scale possible.
From research to commercialisation, we work from production to end uses: consulting and strategy, design, engineering, construction of energy-efficient assets, digital platforms, operation, financing and results-based commitment.
Geothermal energy
The term ‘geothermal’ means ‘heat from the earth’. Geothermal energy is renewable, ecological energy that is available everywhere, which unlike solar and wind energy, does not depend on meteorological conditions. 100 metres below ground, or at 3 kilometres deep, in liquid or steam form, the heat contained under the earth has multiple forms and assets.
Whether for low, medium or high-temperature solutions, Equans supports its clients in analysing the geothermal potential, meeting technical challenges and ensuring the economic feasibility of projects.
Do you have a geothermal energy project?
Biomass
Although wood is the biomass resource that has been exploited for the longest time to supply energy, it is far from being the only solid and ligneous biomass that can be converted into energy. Equans has been developing unique expertise for over ten years to improve wood-energy combustion and take advantage of the other resources available such as biowaste, sewage sludge, straw, etc. We design, build, install and commission energy processing and recovery systems.
Our expertise
✓ Transport, sorting, packaging and biomass storage
✓ Combustion process
✓ Coal and biomass co-combustion
✓ Conversion of biomass into thermal and electric energy
✓ Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
✓ Transport and storage of reactive substances, residues and ashes
✓ Composting and anaerobic digestion of biomass
✓ Cogeneration of thermal and electric energy from biomass
Do you have a biogas project?
Biomethanisation
Methanisation is a natural biological process of degradation of an organic material by micro-organisms in the absence of oxygen. This process requires a raw material: biomass. At the end of the methanisation process, two products are generated: biogas (methane + carbonic gas) and a residue, called digestate.
Biomethanisation consists of reproducing this process on an industrial scale. The resulting biogas is purified, i.e. concentrated to more than 90% methane. Once the purification has taken place, the biogas is then called biomethane.
This biogas can be converted into different useful forms of energy. There are three lines of reuse:
✓ Electricity production
✓ Thermal energy production (hot air, hot water)
✓ Biofuel (biomethane) production
Do you have a biomethanisation project?
Hydrogen
The next decades will see important developments in the gradual replacement of natural gas with hydrogen. Green hydrogen, produced mainly by water electrolysis from renewable electricity, is one of the future levers to accelerate the transition towards carbon neutrality: development of green mobility, decarbonisation of the mass industrial uses of hydrogen (fertiliser, refinery, chemistry, etc.), better integration of intermittent renewable energies in the energy system, mass storage of the electricity surpluses produced.
Hydrogen can be used in addition to all the green energies to fulfil and decarbonise many uses and can become the pillar of 100% renewable regions.
Coordination, installation and exploitation - Equans has established expertise in small and medium-scale hydrogen projects.
Do you have a hydrogen project?
Hydroelectricity
Hydroelectric plants produce electricity by using the kinetic and potential energy of water. The water activates turbines that in turn drive alternators that transform the mechanical energy into electricity. Equans supports its clients in the three main categories of hydroelectric plant:
✓ Run-of-river plants that use the continuous flow of the watercourse and supply constant basic energy
✓ Storage plants, with a retention dam that stores the water in a reservoir, creating energy that is guaranteed to be available and used at consumption peaks
✓ Pumped storage hydropower (PSH) plants which use two water reservoirs at different levels
Do you have a hydroelectricity project?
Contact
Want to know more?
Contact our expert!
Tomas Geeraert
Business Development
& Sales Manager