| Type | Société anonyme (Euronext: EDF) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Energy |
| Founded | 1946 |
| Founder(s) | Marcel Paul |
| Headquarters | Paris, France |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Henri Proglio (Chairman and CEO) |
| Products | Electricity generation, transmission and distribution; energy trading |
| Revenue | €65.17 billion (2010)[1] |
| Operating income | €6.240 billion (2010)[1] |
| Profit | €1.020 billion (2010)[1] |
| Total assets | €240.56 billion (end 2010)[1] |
| Total equity | €36.90 billion (end 2010)[1] |
| Employees | 158,760 (FTE, average 2010)[1] |
| Subsidiaries | EDF Energy |
| Website | www.edf.com |
Électricité de France S.A. (EDF; English: Electricity of France) is the second largest French utility company. Headquartered in Paris, France, with €65.2 billion in revenues in 2010, EDF operates a diverse portfolio of 120,000+ megawatts of generation capacity in Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
EDF is one of the world's largest producers of electricity. In 2003, it produced 22% of the European Union's electricity, primarily from nuclear power:
Its 58 active nuclear reactors (in France) are spread out over 20 sites (nuclear power plants). They comprise 34 reactors of 900 MWe, 20 reactors of 1.3 GWe, and 4 reactors of 1450 MWe, all PWRs.
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EDF specialises in electricity, from engineering to distribution. The company's operations include: electricity generation and distribution; power plant design, construction and dismantling; energy trading; transport. It is active in such power generation technologies as nuclear power, hydropower, marine energies, wind power, solar energy, biomass, geothermal energy and fossile-fired energy.[2]
The electricity network is composed of:
The EDF head office is located along Avenue de Wagram in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. The EDF head office is shared between several EDF sites in Greater Paris.[3]
EDF was founded on April 8, 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. 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.[6] This monopoly ended in 1999, when EDF was forced by a European Directive to open up 20% of its business to competitors.[7]
Until November 19, 2004, EDF was a state-owned corporation, but it is now 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,[8] although it retained almost 85% ownership as of the end of 2008.[9]
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.[10]
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.[11]
France is the main country to use electricity of nuclear origin as the dominant method of production (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 a 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 was 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.[12]
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.[13] 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.[14][15]
EDF is has developed recharging points for the Toyota Plug-in HV in France [16]
The French government has contributed $550 million to a partnership by Electricite de France with Renault-Nissan and with PSA Peugeot Citroen.[17]
| year | Production (TWh) | Emission (Gt CO2) | kg CO2/MWh |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 650 | 91.35 | 141 |
| 2003 | 669 | 96.34 | 144 |
| 2004 | 647 | 95.74 | 148 |
| 2005 | 647 | 93.52 | 145 |
| 2006 | 655 | 93.35 | 142 |
| 2007 | 706 | 101.91 | 144 |
| 2008 | 704 | 103.79 | 147 |
| 2009 | 652 | 88.09 | 135 |
Apart from the producers and foreign distributors, in France, there are some important companies, which, although their market share is weak with regard to that of EDF, are a significant competition. These are:
Among the other rivals of EDF, one can count a number of municipally governed companies, known under the generic term 'entreprises locales de distribution' ('local businesses of distribution'), who are electricity producers exploiting EDF's network.
The nationalisation of electricity and gas on April 8, 1946, which profoundly changed the French electrical and gas organization, had however acknowledged the right of villages to keep their role in the public distribution of electricity and gas.
In 1946, certain firms, villages or groups of villages, did not accept the proposal of nationalisation and created autonomous state controls (who held the monopoly of distribution, until 2004, in their area). To note, contrary to the initial idea, local controllers of electricity, have had, since 1946, the choice to continue to produce electricity. In fact, their production was rather marginal, except in Rhône-Alpes; having often preferred buying the majority of the electrical power from EDF. With the recent opening of the electricity market, local controllers are considering developing, augmenting and diversifying their own production, (e.g. Ouest Énergie, the subsidiary company of SIEDS) and/or to diversify their sources of supply.
To date, the number of local businesses of distribution is approximately 170 and holds 5% of the distribution of French electrical power in 2,500 villages. Created by local authorities, they serve about 3 million people and represent 7,000 jobs. Around thirty of them - 9 during creation in 1962 - are federated in a national entity known as ANROC.[19]
Several departments are not therefore served entirely or partly by EDF, for instance:
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