in Reunion, power plants are switching from fossil fuels to plant matter

Reunion Island serves as a laboratory for the French energy transition. By this summer, electricity production will be almost entirely renewable.

The challenge of energy transition arises in the overseas islands and territories. Indeed, how can we produce electricity without fossil fuels when we have neither a nuclear power plant nor neighboring countries to import if necessary? Reunion Island is the laboratory of this transition initiated by France with the conversion of the three main thermal power plants. They now produce electricity with biomass, that is to say plant matter.

Thanks to this work carried out between last year and this summer, Reunion Island is moving from electricity coming 70% from fossil fuels to almost entirely renewable and much less polluting production. This conversion can be seen and felt on the Grand Port, near Saint-Denis-de-La Réunion. Facing the Indian Ocean, an EDF power plant produces 40% of the island’s electricity. It burned heavy fuel oil until last fall, but now a slight smell of rapeseed oil floats at the base of the engines. “Compared to heavy fuel oil, it really smells a lot less. Some were afraid that it would smell a little like frying but really it’s odorless,” comments Alexandre Sengelin, the director of this plant.

“500,000 tonnes” of carbon dioxide saved

“Today we have completely transparent fumes which are completely dust-free and carbon-free. According to European regulations, this means that the plant, during its growth, has absorbed at least as much carbon dioxide as what we will emit at the time of combustion. Locally we still emit carbon dioxide, on a planetary scale we save 500,000 tonnes each year”, welcomes Alexandre Sengelin.

The EDF power plant therefore divides its CO2 emissions by three. At the same time, the two other thermal power plants in Reunion are also being converted from coal to a solid material, based on wood. These two sites are operated by the company Albioma. The first, that of Bois-Rouge, in the north-east of Réunion, finished its conversion work in 2023. Those of the second, at Gol in the south-west of the island, are in progress and must be completed this summer.

No more piles of coal at the entrance to these two power stations. The wood pellets are first stored at the port, in large domes built next to the EDF power plant. They are then transported by a series of trucks, at night, to the production sites. Albioma ensures that with this conversion, CO2 emissions from these two Reunion power plants will fall by 80 to 85%, on a global scale – including wood processing and transport.

This is how the electricity produced in Reunion becomes almost 100% renewable. But experts and NGOs criticize a conversion that is not so green and difficult to sustain. Firstly because this biomass – plant matter – costs much more than other sources of energy and because it comes from far away. Rapeseed oil arrives from mainland France when Albioma imports wood pellets mainly from countries in the Indo-Pacific basin, and in addition from Canada. This is what NGOs like Reclaim Finance, Attac, Extinction Rebellion and Greenpeace denounce.

Christophe Barbarini, Greenpeace activist in Reunion: “The energy that we are going to burn locally, we are going to burn it while producing less carbon dioxide and also producing less sulfur. So we can only rejoice about that. But going from power plants that burn fuel oil to power plants which use pellets and rapeseed but which need fuel oil to make the entire journey, that means tens of thousands of kilometers of transport. There is a form of hypocrisy.”

“It’s not perfect but it’s better”

EDF explains that the maritime transport of its liquid biomass emits less than that of the heavy fuel oil used: firstly because the fuel oil came from the North Sea, according to Alexandre Sengelin, with a stopover in Saudi Arabia, i.e. “a greater distance than that covered by rapeseed oil, which arrives from a factory in Sète”. The director of the Port-Est Power Plant also specifies that ships consume less because biomass is less dense than fuel oil. The response from the president of Albioma is concise: “It’s better to import biomass than coal, it’s not perfect but it’s better”. Frédéric Moyne also highlights the use of local plants.

Half the year, these two Reunion power plants burn bagasse – sugar cane residue – and the company is developing wood recovery directly on the island. “For example, pallet residue, green waste, tree trunks that fell after a cyclone, agricultural biomass, etc. lists Frédéric Moyne. Today we are working on the cane straw that remains in the fields. Can we collect a piece of this straw to fuel our boilers, that will mean less imported biomass.” Albioma will also soon burn household waste. Ultimately, this new local material must represent 10% of the production of its power plants. For its part, EDF wants to recover the frying oil from Reunion restaurants but this will be marginal.

To limit the impact of the conversion, it would be impossible to find all the materials necessary for electricity production on the island. EDF indicates that it needs around 200,000 tonnes of rapeseed-based biomass per year. Albioma, which imported 600 to 700,000 tonnes of coal to Reunion each year, estimates its imports at 800,000 tonnes of wood pellets each year, for its two thermal sites.

“This is not sustainable”

Nearly a million tonnes of biomass would be needed on the island, according to Stéphane His’s calculation. More broadly, this independent consultant based in Reunion Island warns about land use on a global scale. “Overall, an area equivalent to Reunion Island would be needed every year to produce this biomass. So, in my opinion, it is not sustainable, especially since there is a global market for vegetable oil. whatever happens, you also need vegetable oil to make fries or to eat salad, he assures. Behind, the consequence is that you increase the overall pressure, which means that you will look for additional land to produce a surplus of vegetable oil. It’s the same thing for the forest! So the carbon benefit is canceled. More generally, it’s obviously a dead end.”

So how can we completely decarbonize electricity production in Reunion? Stéphane His works for an offshore wind turbine project led by the companies Akuo and BlueFloat. Albioma is beginning to explore the possibilities of geothermal energy to capture the heat of this volcanic land, but these projects must still be feasible. Until then, for its electricity, the island therefore relies on biomass, on its increasingly numerous solar panels, its EDF dams and a few onshore wind turbines. By 2028, EDF plans to convert thermal power plants in other isolated territories into electricity: Corsica, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyana. Including the conversion of Port-Est in Reunion, this would represent a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 2.5 million tonnes per year, according to EDF.