Saudi Arabia and France have agreed to make concerted efforts to enhance cooperation in the field of nuclear energy. This landmark commitment was announced by the Saudi Energy Ministry, highlighting that energy stands as a fundamental pillar of the long-term partnership between Saudi Arabia and France.
In a joint statement released after a meeting between Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and the French Energy Transition Minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, both countries pledged their commitment to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for energy cooperation signed in February 2023.
The statement stressed that both countries are dedicated to executing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement. Their shared goals include making strides to limit the Earth’s temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The shared strategic priorities between Saudi Arabia and France include tackling climate change challenges, strengthening energy supply security, reliability, and sustainability, and facilitating its cost-effectiveness. Clean hydrogen is recognized by both countries as a fundamental fuel to achieve shared goals in promoting sustainable economic development while mitigating the impacts of climate change.
There’s a mutual agreement to boost cooperation in the electricity sector and share experiences in generating electricity from renewable energy sources. They also aim to promote the participation of private sectors in electricity projects, including power generation technologies, transportation, distribution, storage, and network automation technologies.
Both countries are determined to make joint efforts to enhance energy efficiency and promote cooperation in the field of nuclear energy, within a peaceful and safe framework, radioactive waste management, nuclear applications, and human capabilities development.
Furthermore, they are committed to cooperating in promoting climate change technologies and solutions, such as carbon capture, usage, and storage from sectors with hard-to-abate emissions like cement, aviation, marine, petrochemicals, and others.
The Kingdom aims to become a global leader in exporting hydrogen and low-emission energy source-generated electricity, taking advantage of its capability to produce hydrogen and generate electricity from low-emission sources at a competitive cost. It has the necessary renewable energy resources, natural gas, and carbon basins to export hydrogen, in addition to its strategic location near the world’s largest demand centers.
On the other hand, France’s strategy to develop carbon-free hydrogen aims to contribute significantly to decarbonizing the industrial and transport sectors. The strategy includes a public investment program and “France 2030” which aims to accelerate investment and develop innovative solutions in the French excellence sectors for decarbonizing industry and developing renewable energy with the aim of increasing installed capacity to 100 GW by 2050, with over 40 GW produced from offshore wind farms.
Saudi Arabia and France have put hydrogen and electricity generated from low-emission sources and renewable energy at the core of their energy transition process. They also agreed to unify efforts in finding innovative solutions for producing hydrogen in the most effective and competitive ways, and for developing its use in industry, transport, power generation, buildings, and other relevant applications.
“In a bid to achieve a sustainable energy future, Saudi Arabia and France have agreed to collaborate in the areas of hydrogen and renewable energy-generated electricity. This collaboration is based on a roadmap founded on three pillars.
The partnership will bolster the application of cutting-edge technologies in production, transportation, and transformation at demand centers in both hydrogen and renewable energy-generated electricity sectors.
The private sector is expected to play a significant role in the Saudi-French collaboration. This agreement welcomes the joint efforts of Saudi and French companies to partner across the entire energy supply chain, particularly promoting trade in the hydrogen sector.
The statement revealed that the roadmap would bolster the development of the hydrogen sector through the mutual acknowledgment of a framework for accreditation, including an emissions lifecycle assessment from all potential sources, to ensure consistency in international trade.
In addition to these pillars, both countries will work to enhance cooperation in developing sustainable energy supply chains and facilitate collaboration between companies to maximize the utilization of local resources in both countries. This will contribute to achieving resilient and efficient energy supplies.
