Faced with the challenges and urgency of the country’s electrification, “time is against us”, summed up the boss of the company before the parliamentary commission of inquiry into France’s energy sovereignty.
by Luc Bronner
“We have a strong slope ahead of us. We can go up it. I simply believe that we need a collective awareness.” Heard Tuesday, February 28 by the Parliamentary Inquiry on the “Reasons for the Loss of energy sovereignty of France “, the CEO of EDF, Luc Rémont, did not conceal the magnitude of the task, nor the emergency, in an attempt to straighten the electrician after an extremely difficult 2022 year.
For more than two hours, before the deputies, the former Schneider Electric exposed his analysis of the setbacks of the French electrician, the internal factors and the external explanations, then he delivered his reflections to restore electricality of France (EDF) both its level of production, less dark financial results and the ability to invest massively. Since October 2022, his predecessors at the head of EDF, former ministers, trade unionists and senior officials answer the questions of the commission chaired by the deputy Raphaël Schellenberger (Les Républicains), whose conclusions will be published in April.
In 2022, EDF has gone through the “greatest operational crisis since its creation” in 1946, underlined Luc Rémont, in post since November 2022. With a drop in his nuclear production fell to 279 terawattheures, the company saw Its financial results collapse and its debt follow the opposite curve. This “particularly difficult situation” occurs while the electrification of uses (cars, industry, etc.) will significantly increase needs, and therefore investments. “Time is against us,” summed up Luc Rémont to qualify the issues, and the urgency, of the country’s electrification. 2> “The time is against us”
The CEO repeated to wait for an “internal awareness”, a “collective paradigm change”. As the first work in progress, he explains that he asked his teams to work on “Metal Time” – internal jargon to say the “effective time” devoted to machines by identifying and raising the “collective rigidities”. Same thing on the projects for which he awaits “more compressed times” in order to finish the sites on time and in budgets. EDF, it is true, is marked by the financial and temporal skid of the EPR of Flamanville (Manche), whose commissioning was postponed in 2024, twelve years after the initial deadline.
The “new nuclear”, at least six EPR 2 reactors announced by Emanuel Macron in February 2022, represents 51 billion euros in investment, an estimate that the CEO calls to take with caution like all “big figures “. Renewable energies will significantly require the same orders of magnitude by 2050 so that France holds its objectives of decarbonation. The “big fairing”, which consists in adapting existing power plants to extend their lifespan, will also weigh very heavy.
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