The story
Founded by Marcel Paul in 1946, in Paris.1
Status of EDF
EDF was founded on 8 April 1946, as a result of the nationalisation of around 1,700 smaller energy producers, transporters and distributors by the Minister of Industrial Production Marcel Paul. Mostly a state-owned EPIC, it became the main electricity generation and distribution company in France, enjoying a monopoly in electricity generation, although some small local distributors were retained by the nationalisation. This monopoly ended in 1999, when EDF was forced by a European Directive to open up 20% of its business to competitors.
Until 19 November 2004, EDF was a state-owned corporation, but became a limited-liability corporation under private law (société anonyme), after its status was changed by statute. The French government partially floated shares of the company on the Paris Stock Exchange in November 2005, although it retained almost 85% ownership as of the end of 2008.
On 22 November 2016, French competition regulators raided EDF offices, looking for evidence that EDF was abusing its dominant position to manipulate electricity prices and squeeze rivals.
Finances
Between 2001 and 2003, EDF was forced to reduce its equity capital by €6.4 billion total because of the performance of subsidiaries in South America and Europe. In 2001, it also acquired a number of British energy companies, becoming the UK's biggest electricity supplier.
The company remains heavily in debt. Its profitability suffered during the recession which began in 2008. It made €3.9 billion in 2009, which fell to €1.02 billion in 2010, with provisions set aside amounting to €2.9 billion.
In January 2013 the company sold its 1.6% stake in U.S. utility Exelon for $470 million.
In March 2016 EDF's Chief Financial Officer, Thomas Piquemal, who had argued that the final investment decision on building Hinkley Point C nuclear power station should be delayed for three years, resigned. With EDF's market value halved over the preceding year, the cost of the Hinkley Point C project now exceeded the entire market capitalisation of EDF.
In March 2017 EDF offered a €4bn rights issue of new shares to increase capital availability, at a 34.5% discount. The French government committed to purchasing €3bn of the rights issue. Shares prices fell to an all-time low due to the heavy discount on new shares.
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EDF's net debt at the end of 2018 was €33 billion, but with future obligations such as pension liabilities and costs for managing nuclear waste allowed for, the adjusted net debt was €70 billion. In order to improve EDF's finances, as of 2019 EDF has sold €10 billion of assets, with plans to sell a further €2 to €3 billion of assets by 2021, and shareholders have been allocated new shares rather than cash dividends. Bonds have been issued in Asian currencies to expand sources of funding. It has financial commitments for new builds at Flamanville and Hinkley Point C. EDF is committed to spending €49.4 billion by 2025 for life extension of its French nuclear reactor fleet, which as of 2019 has an average age of 33 years, to 50 years.
In December 2021, EDF had about €43 billion of debt, which investment analysts Morningstar expected to exceed €60bn by the end of 2022. EDF's credit rating was downgraded in February 2022.
In February 2024, EDF took a €12.9 billion impairment charge on cost overruns building the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, and a further €1.1 billion later for inflation.
Energy policy
France is the world's largest user of nuclear power for electricity (78% of French production in 2007).
In May 2004, the French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy reasserted, in front of the French Parliament, the primacy of nuclear power, much to the relief of labour unions of EDF. In this speech, the minister re-phrased the famous slogan, "We do not have oil, but we have ideas", by declaring: "We do not have oil, we do not have gas, we do not have coal, but we had ideas".
Depleted uranium from reprocessing the spent fuel of the 58 French nuclear power plants were exported from Le Havre to Russia in the last years and stored in Seversk where it was enriched, and the new fuel was exported back to France.
In 2013 EDF acknowledged the difficulties it was having building the new EPR nuclear reactor design, with its head of production and engineering, Hervé Machenaud, saying EDF had lost its dominant international position in design and construction of nuclear power stations. In September 2015 EDF's chief executive Jean-Bernard Lévy stated that the design of a "New Model" EPR was being worked on, which will be easier to build, to be ready for orders from about 2020.
In 2016 EDF's chief executive Jean-Bernard Lévy stated that EDF's 2030 strategy increased the emphasis on renewable energy, with a 2030 goal of doubling renewable energy capacity worldwide. He stated "I am convinced that we will still have a centralised and secure system in the future but it will be supplemented by a more intermittent and local decentralised system, in which customers will take charge of their consumption. In readiness for this, we must press on with research into electricity storage and smart electricity systems".
EDF spying conviction
In 2011, a French court fined EDF €1.5m and jailed two senior employees for spying on Greenpeace, including hacking into Greenpeace's computer systems. Greenpeace was awarded €500,000 in damages. Although EDF claimed that a security firm had only been employed to monitor Greenpeace, the court disagreed, jailing the head and deputy head of EDF's nuclear security operation for three years each. Two employees of the security firm, Kargus, run by a former member of France's secret services, received sentences of three and two years respectively.
Charges were mostly dismissed in appeal in 2013.
DDoS attack on EDF site
EDF's website was brought down by DDoS attacks three times in 2011, twice in April and once later in June.
The attacks were claimed by the hacktivist group Anonymous. Three men were later arrested and interviewed on charges of "obstructing functionality of a data processing service", "fraudulent access of a data processing service" and "participation in an association formed with the aim of preparing such infractions".
Motivations for the attack were thought to relate to the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan. Unlike Switzerland and Germany, which plan to close down all nuclear reactors at the end of their lifespan, the government of France had no such plans to move away from nuclear power and three months after the Fukushima meltdown, stated a budget increase for nuclear power.
The downtime of the EDF website cost the company an estimated €162,000.
Suing No Dash For Gas
In February 2013 EDF Energy sought an estimated £5 million in damages from environmental activists from the No Dash for Gas campaign that occupied the EDF-owned West Burton CCGT power station in October 2012.
It is unusual in the UK for companies to seek damages from protesters.
On 13 March 2013, EDF dropped their lawsuit against the protesters, after agreeing a permanent injunction against protesters entering EDF sites.
Absorption of Areva reactor business
In 2017 EDF took over the majority of the reactor business of Areva, excluding the fuel business, in a French government sponsored restructuring following financial and technical problems at Areva due to the building of new EPR nuclear plants. The reactor business has been named Framatome.
In October 2019 French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire released an audit report on the construction of the heavily delayed and nearly four times over-budget Flamanville 3 EPR development, started by Areva in 2007. The Finance Minister demanded EDF present within a month an action plan for the project, calling it a "failure for the entire French nuclear industry".
Effect of coronavirus pandemic
In April 2020 EDF estimated the economic slowdown due to the coronavirus pandemic could potentially reduce electricity consumption in France by 20%. EDF estimated annual nuclear output in France would be about 300 TWh in 2020 and 330-360 TWh in 2021 and 2022, down from a pre-coronavirus estimate of 375-390 TWh. Some nuclear reactors will likely be taken offline in the summer of 2020. EDF announced it had withdrawn financial targets for 2020 and 2021. A delay of planned 10-year reactor upgrades this year may be necessary.
To mitigate the impact EDF is targeting €500 million of cost savings to 2022, and aims to sell €3 billion of assets to 2022.
2021 stress corrosion cracking crisis
In October 2021, stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel safety system piping was discovered, eventually requiring rolling fleet-wide shutdowns for inspections and repair during 2022 and 2023. This reduced electricity production in 2022 to 279 TWh, 82 TWh less than expected, with a continuing shortfall in 2023. To meet demand, EDF had to buy electricity on the European market at high prices, costing an estimated €29 billion to June 2023.
In late May 2022, when 12 nuclear reactors were offline, EDF increased the estimated earnings reductions for the inspections and repairs to €18.5 billion.
2021 global energy crisis
EDF had to sell a further 20 TWh of power to other domestic suppliers at a reduced price due to the government response to the 2021 global energy crisis. In January 2022, EDF calculated that the increase in reduced price wholesale supply would cost it €8.4 billion (£7 billion), and it withdrew its profit guidance. The EDF share price fell considerably. EDF's debt is about €41 billion, and Fitch Ratings lowered EDF's credit rating.
2022 Re-nationalization
On 6 July 2022, French prime minister Élisabeth Borne announced that "the French government is aiming for a full nationalization of" EDF. Borne "vowed" to limit the impact of the rise in energy prices through the state having "full control over...electricity production and performance.” Borne told parliament, "we must ensure our sovereignty in the face of...the colossal challenges to come." Earlier in 2022, President Emmanuel Macron had "suggested" a renationalization of EDF as well as a "big expansion of nuclear energy in the coming decades" however, in 2021, he had to scrap an "overhaul" of EDF, codenamed "Project Hercules," that would have placed EDF's profitable renewables sector in a new company, due to opposition by unions and objections raised by the European Commission.
In March 2023, EDF created the Nuward subsidiary to design and manufacture a small modular reactor, for construction from 2030. In July 2024, EDF announced it was discontinuing the existing design, and will work on an SMR design based on existing rather than innovative technologies, following discussions with prospective SMR customers. In January 2025, EDF announced that the new Nuward conceptual design would be completed by mid-2026 to come to market in the 2030s, with an output of about 400 MWe and usable heat output 100 MWt.
In May 2024, EDF raised a loan of €5.8 billion over 3–5 years to finance the life extension of its older 900 MWe reactors by 10 years beyond 40 years. The loan is part of EDF's Green Financing Framework which is in accord with the EU taxonomy for sustainable activities which allows for private-public financing.
From Wikipedia’s article on Électricité de France, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.6