2023-07-01 16:48:03
Couple Elsa Bembaron
Posted yesterday at 11:46, Updated just now
Luc Rémont arrived at the head of EDF last November. ALAIN JOCARD / AFP
Luc Rémont, the group’s CEO, is launching his first major project.
This is the first blow of the pickaxe in the great building site of the new French nuclear power. Luc Rémont, who arrived at the head of EDF last November, announced on Thursday June 28 a major reorganization of the group’s nuclear activities, Archyde.com revealed.
According to our information, five new departments will be put in place, structured around the group’s businesses, all reporting directly to Luc Rémont. This new organization should be in place at the beginning of next year. It will have a production department, which will be in charge of operations; another will be in charge of project management, schematically the construction of new reactors – EPR 2 – wanted by the government as part of the nuclear recovery plan. Six EPR2s, or even 14, might be built in France. A third will be devoted to project management, in charge of preparing construction programs, authorizations (permitting), financing of new nuclear projects. Engineering is given its own direction, as is industry, which will bring together Framatome and Arabelle turbines (acquired from GE).
For now, fiveforerunners have been named“, explains a source to the Figaro. Cédric Lewandowski for production, Xavier Ursat for project and project management, Bernard Fontana for industry and Alain Tranzer for engineering.
Un double signal
With this new organization, Luc Rémont sends a double signal. On the one hand, it shows its desire to accelerate. It puts in place all the structure necessary to initiate the preparation of new nuclear, but also to accelerate the ramp-up of current reactors. Last year, French production fell to 279 terrawatt hours (TWh) due to the shutdown of power plants linked to the discovery of microcracks (under-stressed corrosion) on certain pieces of piping. The group aims to produce between 300 and 330 TWh of nuclear electricity this year. Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the Minister for Energy Transition, asked the group to quickly increase this production by at least 30%. To achieve these objectives, Luc Rémont has made operational efficiency one of his priorities. The choice of management by profession aims to respond to this.
The boss also comes to shake up certain baronies, by effectively limiting the field of action of some of these executive directors, starting with Cédric Lewandowski. He is currently Group Executive Director in charge of the Nuclear and Thermal Fleet Department, is in charge of nuclear production, engineering, the major refit – the major ten-year renovation and extension project for the fleet. Xavier Ursat is the Group Executive Director in charge of the Engineering and New Nuclear Projects Department.
This first restructuring comes as a strategic plan is still awaited. It was supposed to be unveiled in June, but would ultimately be scheduled for September. Renationalized EDF, or “100% owned by the State”, according to the expression of its CEO, has already been assigned several missions and not the least by the State. In addition to the revival of nuclear power, there is a desire to develop renewable energies, with the country’s energy sovereignty in sight. EDF must also be able to offer attractive energy prices to French consumers, but also to companies in a global context of reindustrialisation. Low-carbon and inexpensive electricity is one of the main criteria for a territory’s competitiveness.
The challenges are also financial. An increase in the power of the industrial tool should also allow EDF to turn the page of 2022, a year which resulted in a record loss of 17.2 billion euros. The group’s debt reached 64.5 billion. However, the subject of the method of financing new nuclear power has not yet been settled. The EPR 2 will cost at least 51.7 billion – a sum which should be revised upwards to take account of inflation – when the large fairing was calculated at 66 billion euros.
These developments are set once morest a tense international backdrop. The war in Ukraine has upset the European energy equation. At the same time, Europe is seeking to adopt a new rule for setting electricity prices (“market design”). Exogenous factors that might influence EDF’s strategic choices
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