EDF approaches winter with “serenity”, says its CEO

PARIS (Reuters) – EDF is approaching winter in France “with serenity” due to the rebound in its nuclear production, favorable conditions in hydroelectricity and still moderate electricity consumption, its CEO, Luc, said on Wednesday Remont.

During a hearing before the Economic Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, the CEO also declared that the public electrician, heavily penalized in 2022 by unprecedented corrosion problems in certain reactors, would be “at the rendezvous” of its nuclear production target in France of 300 to 330 terawatt hours (TWh) for 2023.

Referring to the availability of the French nuclear fleet “now equivalent to what we had before the corrosion phenomenon”, Luc Rémont also reported a level of hydroelectric filling “higher than average” and a level of electricity consumption which “remains low”, with an “effort at sobriety” maintained, “at an estimated level of 8 to 9% compared to consumption in previous years”.

“All this therefore contributes to the fact that we can get through the winter, approach the winter with serenity, even if obviously the attention both operationally on the fact of producing on time and in the right quantities, and on sobriety , remains maintained,” he declared.

While French nuclear production was established in 2022 at its lowest level since 1988, at 279 TWh, due to corrosion problems and numerous conventional maintenance operations, EDF aims to increase it to 400 TWh by 2030.

(Reporting by Benjamin Mallet, editing by Kate Entringer)