Movement on Decarbonizing the Loire Estuary
19th February signalled the official launch of the "ZIBaC" low-carbon industrial activity zone on the Loire Estuary, an initiative driven by the French National Agency for Energy Transition (ADEME) within the framework of the "France 2030" Programme, for which the Loire Estuary Regional Community’s project was named the winning proposal in July 2023. The objective is to reduce emissions in the activity zone by 50 % by 2030, and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
Before an audience of over 200 Regional Community players gathered together in Saint Nazaire, the founding partners of the initiative, comprising the Loire Estuary Association of Industrial Firms (AILE), whose membership includes Arcelormittal, Cargill, EDF, Elengy, Engie, Eqiom, TotalEnergies and Yara, Saint Nazaire Urban Area District Authority, Estuaire et Sillon Community District Authority, Nantes ‒ Saint Nazaire Port, and Pays de la Loire Regional Authority, presented ADELE, the Association for the Decarbonization of the Loire Estuary.
The guarantor of the decarbonization pathway, ADELE brings together all the Regional Community players committed to delivering carbon neutrality on the Loire Estuary by 2050. It organizes the operational management of the Loire Estuary Decarbonization programme, and acts as a link between ADEME and the respective project initiators.
ADELE has its own public-private governance structure, with a Board of Directors that is at present composed of representatives of the five founding members: Mélanie René – AILE (Chair), François Parizot – AILE (Vice-Chair and Treasurer), Julien Dujardin ‒ Nantes ‒ Saint Nazaire Port (Vice-Chair) and three other Vice-Chairs: Christelle Morançais – Pays de la Loire Regional Council, Éric Provost – Saint Nazaire Urban Area District Authority, and Michel Mézard – Estuaire et Sillon Community District Authority.
Twenty or More Actions to Decarbonize the Loire Estuary
The Loire Estuary Decarbonization programme is built upon twenty or more action sheets to speed up the process of transforming this industrial-port area employing 28 500 people into a low-carbon energy hub on a massive scale.
The action sheets will contribute to the emergence of new sectors of activity and infrastructures supporting energy transition and serving to connect low-carbon energy producers to emerging and future needs on a national level. Those future infrastructures notably include a multimodal hydrogen hub permitting the production, importation and transportation of low-carbon hydrogen; a multimodal CO2 hub enabling the capture, reception, value-enhancement and exportation of industrial CO2; a natural gas hub for the production and distribution of green/low-carbon gas or a centre of operations dedicated to other low-carbon energy sources, permitting the production and supply of bioLNG and other biofuels.
