Climate, environment and circular economy

Reinforcing and accelerating R&I  

In 2020, IFPEN’s energy resources activities were awarded the “Carnot Institute” label, in recognition of the numerous active collaborative initiatives with economic players and academia, in France and around the world.  IFPEN Ressources Energétiques is now one of the 39 members of the Carnot network, initially for a period of four years.

Created by the French Ministry for Higher Education, Research and Innovation in 2006, the label is awarded to public laboratories very actively involved in partnership research with a view to supporting company innovation and the country’s growth.

Distributed throughout France, the Carnot Institutes work in synergy to pursue a common objective: to prepare the industrial and economic future, accelerating the transfer of research technologies to the socio-economic world.
 

Addressing the energy transition challenge

The IFPEN Ressources Energétiques Carnot Institute (IFPEN RE) is resolutely committed to the energy transition, seeking to: 

• develop renewable energies, focusing on wind and ocean energies,  geothermal energy and hydrogen, as well as their integration in electricity networks via energy storage;  
• minimize the “climate risk” associated with industrial activities, via the reduction in CO₂ emissions and a better understanding and anticipation of  climate/ground interactions;
• support its partners in the oil industry and oil-related sector, helping them to conduct production activities in a more environmentally-friendly manner, exploiting only the oil and gas resources strictly necessary to take us through this transition period and minimizing the risks associated with exploration and production and enhanced oil recovery techniques, both onshore and offshore. 
   

Supporting innovation in SMEs

In addition to the development of new energy technologies, IFPEN RE is committed to: 
-    proactively increasing the number of partnerships with intermediate-sized companies, SMEs and start-ups; 
-    enabling the Carnot Institute network to benefit from its international development expertise and also drawing on feedback in return.
 

A dense partnership network

The IFPEN Ressources Energétiques Carnot Institute enjoys close ties with industry, from micro-companies, SMEs and intermediate-sized companies through to major French and international industrial groups.

Moreover, it is actively involved in numerous international, European and national collaborative structures, placing it at the heart of a dense research partnership network.

Internationally, the IFPEN RE Carnot Institute has close ties with numerous Research Technology Organizations (RTOs), particularly via framework agreements and strategic partnerships.  Carnot research enjoys a high profile and more than half of its A-list publications are the fruit of cooperative international activities.  In addition it is a stakeholder in numerous world-leading scientific organizations and represents France on the Executive Committee of the International Energy Agency’s Technological Cooperation Program, IEA Wind. 

In Europe, the IFPEN RE Carnot Institute is positioned as a key player in the European Research Area (ERA) and works in synergy with platforms such as ETIP-DG in order to define industry’s needs and development opportunities in the geothermal energy sector.  In the field of CCUS, it also actively contributes to European networks such as ECCSEL and the ZEP platform to accelerate the deployment of these technologies.  In the field of geosciences, it contributes to the development of ground management solutions with the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA).

Nationally, the IFPEN RE Carnot Institute is an active contributor to the ANCRE research alliance, of which IFPEN is a founding member, and that of AllEnvi, dedicated to energy and the environment respectively.  It also participates in other themed structures, such as the  AVENIA competitiveness cluster dedicated to geosciences, the Club CO₂ in the field of CCS, which it chairs, the EVOLEN association promoting French technological excellence, the CITEPH Open Innovation program supporting the development of SMEs and intermediate-sized companies in the energy field, and the Convergence Data IA Institute dedicated to digital technology.  
The IFPEN RE Carnot Institute also works closely with the university community and other public research organizations.  Finally, it is actively involved in demonstration projects within the framework of the French Investments for the Future Programs (PIA) supported by Ademe.
 

Expertise and skills  

•    Descriptive and quantitative geosciences 
•    Fluid, solid and structural mechanics 
•    Molecular and thermodynamic modeling 
•    Physical chemistry of complex materials and fluids 
•    Physics and Analysis 
•    Biotechnologies 
•    Chemical engineering and technologies  
•    Process design and modeling  
•    System modeling and simulation 
•    Digital science and technology