EDF’s future investments could exceed 20 billion euros a year, declared the Minister of Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, on Thursday during a conference on nuclear energy organized at the headquarters of the Organization for Cooperation and Development. Economic (OECD), in Paris.
While the public electrician faces the need to maintain its current nuclear park and build new reactors in France, its general director, Luc Rémont, mentioned in July a potential amount of 25 billion euros per year.
6 EPRs planned
While France wants to build at least six EPR2 in about twenty years, the Minister specified that the construction of new nuclear reactors would only represent a limited part of these investments for EDF, that is, about 3 billion euros per year.
The construction of new reactors “is not a financial challenge, it is an industrial challenge,” he said, adding that the financing schemes planned in France – such as “contracts for differences” or regulated asset base systems – are similar to those implemented. in other countries.
EDF and the government are discussing new nuclear regulations that should allow the group to invest while protecting consumers from excessive price increases. This could lead to a limit on the income of the electrician, of which the State again became the sole shareholder at the beginning of June.
New regulation favorable to nuclear energy
At a time when France is trying to obtain favorable regulation of nuclear energy at the European level through the reform of the electricity market, Emmanuel Macron announced on Monday his intention to “regain control of the price of our electricity” within the framework of a “law scheduled for the end of the year, without specifying how.
Representatives from around twenty countries are participating with France in the nuclear conference organized by the OECD, including Canada, Japan, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States.
In this context, they published a call to support nuclear energy in view of the next United Nations conference on climate change (COP28) to be held in Dubai from November 30 to December 12.
Source: BFM TV
