In full re-organization of its portfolio of activities in favor of low-carbon energy, and services related to the energy transition, Engie could not long remain outside of the largest and most promising renewable energy market (but also the electric car) : China.
In Beijing on 12 July, the director-general of Engie, Isabelle Kocher, announced that his group would invest one billion euros on the chinese territory over the next few years in the green energy sector. In the line of fire : solar, biogas, urban networks of heat and cold, as well as charging stations for electric cars, a sector in which it presented his group as the global leader, with 50,000 sites already installed. A rank that it has to its acquisition last march of the Dutch company EV-Box.
A first step of Engie had already been crossed last April with its acquisition of a stake of 30% of Unisun, a local actor of the solar, who has to his credit 500 megawatts of completed projects, which aims to 4 gigawatts by 2020.
Prospects of development based on the tremendous needs
“The needs are immense,” said Isabelle Kocher. The leader of the group said that it was “impressed” by the “speed of deployment” of renewable energy in China. In the biogas, in particular, “the potential in china is significant, particularly from agricultural wastes, and its price is already competitive compared to natural gas,” she said.
In fact, China truste for several years the first place of the podium in the development of new capacity-wind and solar, and even exceed goals regularly yet very ambitious announced each year.
In this context, “we have some very good years of development in front of us,” she assured. Activities “tomorrow” and strong growth, it is exactly what search Engie, as had been recalled by Isabelle Kocher during a meeting with journalists in Paris earlier this week.
This investment is part of a plan of 22 billion euros to the global plan, announced in early 2016.
Isabelle Kocher has announced to be looking for a chinese partner “to marry our technological capacity with an actor who has a hold on local,” she said.
