PARIS, January 4 (Reuters) – EDF hopes that the government will soon take decisions on industrial programming and financing in order to materialize its plans to build nuclear reactors in France, Group CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy said on Tuesday. .
Emmanuel Macron announced at the beginning of November the relaunch of the construction of nuclear reactors in France, without however specifying the number or type of units envisaged, nor their financing.
“We hope that the government will get to the heart of the matter a little more,” said Jean-Bernard Lévy during a meeting organized by the Association of Economic and Financial Journalists (Ajef).
“I hope that the government will move from a phase of declaration of principle to a phase of launching concrete actions; I think this is a subject that is urgent,” he added.
EDF is proposing the construction of six new EPR-type reactors in France on three sites, a project that the group estimates at around 50 billion euros taking into account State intervention – under terms that remain to be specified – making it possible to improve the financing conditions of projects.
“If, as is the case today, I finance nuclear power with rates whose risk premium is very minimal because the State has intervened massively – and that’s how it goes in all countries in the world – the cost price of nuclear power is very competitive, “said Jean-Bernard Lévy.
“There is obviously no question of (the new plants) being financed through private mechanisms, this is not the case anywhere in the world and it is not part of the solutions that we are studying with the administration of the ‘State.”
Jean-Bernard Lévy also judged that the classification by the European Union of certain nuclear projects in the category of “green” investments should result in a greater “depth” of available funding and a reduction in their costs. “I obviously don’t know how to quantify it (but) I think qualitatively there will be a big difference.”
After the government suspended its plans for new French nuclear regulation and EDF reform in July, which were supposed to give the company the means to invest, the CEO further considered that the construction of new reactors and the will to stabilize electricity prices would necessarily entail “a re-examination of the principles of organization and operation of the group”. (Report Benjamin Mallet; edited by Blandine Hénault)