The French electricity company EDF has signed an exclusive agreement for the purchase of part of the nuclear activity of GE Steam Power, including the Arabelle steam turbines. Expected for several days, the announcement was made by EDF and GE in a joint press release published Thursday.
It appears on the day of President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Belfort, on the very site of manufacture of the Arabelle turbines equipping French nuclear power plants, sold in 2015 to the American General Electric when he was Minister of the Economy. This choice to sell Alstom’s energy branch to GE has been regularly criticized.
According to a source familiar with the matter, EDF will pay around 200 million dollars for this transaction, once the cash and debts of the acquired activity have been taken into account. The activity that will be acquired by EDF is valued at a total of 1.2 billion dollars, due to significant cash. The proposed transaction covers “GE Steam Power’s conventional island equipment for new nuclear power plants, including the Arabelle turbines – the most powerful in the world – as well as maintenance and upgrades of existing nuclear power plants”, detail the two groups.
These steam turbines are a strategic asset for the nuclear industry. In particular, they will be able to equip EPR and EPR2 technology reactors as well as SMR (Small Modular Reactor). This acquisition project “will allow EDF to further strengthen its mastery of technologies for the fleet in operation and for new nuclear reactor projects in France and beyond”, commented the Chairman and CEO of EDF Jean- Bernard Levy.
A “role to play in the energy transition”
On the GE side, the group would continue to provide its services “for more than 100 GW of nuclear turbine islands in its American market” and would retain GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy, “a leading supplier in the field of reactor life cycle , which will deploy the first commercial, grid-connected SMR in Canada.”
“Nuclear energy also has an important role to play in the energy transition and GE will continue to support this industry”, underlined for its part its president and general manager, Larry Culp, also quoted.