Companies

Profits at British Gas fell to a record low of £80 million last year as customers used less energy in the warmer weather and the pandemic left households struggling to pay their bills. Its parent company Centrica reported a 31 per cent drop in operating profits to £447 million as it was also hit by the impact of lower commodity prices and businesses using less energy during lockdowns. British Gas is Britain’s biggest household energy supplier but has been losing customers for a decade and reported a further 2 per cent drop to 6.9 million households last year. Chris O’Shea, the Centrica chief executive, is attempting to revive the group’s fortunes but warned: “It won’t be easy.”

Times 25th Feb 2021 read more »

Centrica chief vows to ‘strip out the rubbish’ to revive group’s fortunes. O’Shea admitted that he wouldn’t have designed Centrica’s business model “if I had had a blank sheet of paper.” He insisted, however, that the company still had “unique opportunities” to participate in the energy transition as the UK and Ireland strived to stop contributing to climate change by 2050. British Gas was an early investor in offshore wind 20 years ago, but Centrica has since sold its wind farms as well as large fossil fuel power plants to focus on businesses with customer contact, including including energy supply and “smart” home devices such as a thermostat that can be controlled via an app. Its oil and gas joint venture is also on the block. Centrica is discussing with the government how to finance the conversion of Britain’s largest gas storage site to hydrogen, as its new chief executive faces pressure to prove the company will benefit from the transition to a cleaner energy. Chris O’Shea also sees an opportunity in trading the electricity produced by wind farms on behalf of their owners as he attempts to revive the fortunes of the more than 200-year-old company, better known as the owner. from British Gas.

FT 21st Feb 2021 read more »

Bulb co-founder Amit Gudka is stepping down from the green energy supplier after five years to concentrate on setting up a new energy storage and infrastructure company, today revealing he felt “compelled to look further into this exciting and emerging field”. The entrepreneur, who co-founded London-based Bulb alongside CEO Hayden Wood in 2015, today said he would be leaving his role as chief energy officer at the firm, although he is to remain on the board of both Bulb and its charitable foundation. Gudka told BusinessGreen his new venture is called Virmati Energy, and already has some investors and staff on board, with plans to ramp up operations at the firm as he steps back from his day-to-day role at Bulb. Virmati Energy will initially focus on developing and operating energy storage and renewables infrastructure in the UK, with a view to later expanding the focus internationally as well as moving onto other forms of generation and “nascent technologies”, he said.

Business Green 19th Feb 2021 read more »

COMMENT. EDF: a transformation under high voltage. The company, which is 83% controlled by the State, dreams of being a European champion of carbon neutrality in 2030. But first, it must alleviate considerable debt. The planned arrangement would give pride of place to the market and the stock exchange. Too much according to the unions and many opponents who are mobilizing.

Ouest France 12th Feb 2021 read more »

Net profit drops sharply at EDF. The French electrician assures that he will revise upwards his objectives in renewable energies. EDF saw its net profit fall by 87% in 2020, in particular under the effect of the health crisis, we learned in a press release published on Thursday , February 18 , in which the French company specifies that its objectives are revised upwards. in renewable energies. “We are raising certain strategic objectives [of the plan] Cap 2030 : our objective of net installed renewable capacities increases from 50 gigawatts to 60 by 2030,” he said. “The year 2020 was marked by the health crisis we went through. We reorganized ourselves and we were able to carry out our missions: no one lacked electricity either during the confinement or this winter, ” he stressed.

Le Monde 18th Feb 2021 read more »

EDF has recorded what it has described as “solid” financial results as its renewable generation has soared by 6.3%. Reporting its results today (18 February), the French energy giant revealed its EBITDA stood at €16,174 million (£14,016 million), an organic change of -2.7%.

Current 18th Feb 2021 read more »

State-controlled French power group EDF can manage without fresh capital from the government until the end of 2022, it said on Thursday, but warned that delays in reform of the country’s nuclear sector would hobble its finances. The utility, which is nearly 84% owned by the government, is awaiting an ambitious nuclear power shake-up and restructuring outlined by President Emmanuel Macron, but the process has become bogged down in negotiations with Brussels. A key plank of the overhaul involves higher price guarantees on nuclear energy EDF sells to third-party providers, helping the debt-laden utility to cover production costs. But the plan, which would entail separating the nuclear business from other activities, has been opposed by unions and held up by EU questions over antitrust and state aid issues. The company hopes the reforms will be completed by 2023, EDF executives said as it reported a drop in 2020 profit after the COVID-19 pandemic sapped electricity demand.

Reuters 18th Feb 2021 read more »

EDF: former senior executives criticize the “Hercules” plan. The project to reorganize the public enterprise arouses strong opposition from the unions, but also from former executives. The CEO of EDF repeats it with constancy: without a complete reorganization and the outcome of complex negotiations in Brussels, the French group “risks being relegated to second division” . “Without” Hercules “, EDF is an actor which does not have the means to develop where there is growth” , once again explained Jean-Bernard Lévy to Les Echos , Thursday, February 18, on the occasion of presentation of the company’s results. It must be said that the group’s already difficult economic situation has been worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic: EDF saw its net profit fall by 87% in 2020, to 650 million euros, against 5.2 billion the previous year. The company is now weighed down by a debt of 42.4 billion.

Le Monde 18th Feb 2021 read more »

After a year 2020 upset by the Covid-19 pandemic, EDF published, Thursday, February 18, annual accounts which show a fairly good resistance to the economy. The fall in nuclear power generation could give rise to fear of the worst for the public group: it fell by 11.6% in France to 335.4 terawatt-hours (TWh) and by 10.4% in Great Britain (at 45.7 TWh). However, the public group manages to keep a profit of 650 million euros. These rather flattering results are mainly explained by the effect of the health crisis on the French electricity market. Fuel and energy purchases, in particular the renewable electricity purchase obligations imposed on EDF , fell sharply (- 9.2 %), thus almost fully offsetting the 9.6 % decline in sales (to 69,031 Billions of Euro’s). In addition, the group said that it benefited from a positive price effect on the electricity markets in Great Britain, a strong increase in hydropower production, as well as a clear improvement in the performance of the Italian subsidiary.

Reporterre 18th Feb 2021 read more »

Spent nuclear fuels. EDF wants to invest 1 billion euros for a new swimming pool on the Hague. A 6,500-ton swimming pool, on the Orano la Hague site, to store irradiated Mox fuels: the EDF project, valued at 1 billion euros, was detailed on February 18.

La Presse de la Manche 18th Feb 2021 read more »

EDF keeps 2021 French nuclear target at 330-360 TWh; 33 TWh coronavirus impact 2020. EDF has maintained its 2021 French nuclear output target in a range of 330 TWh-360 TWh after 2020 output fell to a record low of 335.4 TWh, the French utility said Feb. 18. Some 33 TWh of the 2020 nuclear decline was directly related to the coronavirus pandemic, forcing a rescheduling of reactor maintenance, it said. Closure of the Fessenheim nuclear plant and extended outages at Flamanville and Paluel also reduced output from EDF’s 375 TWh-390 TWh forecast for 2020.

S&P Global 18th Feb 2021 read more »

Drax is facing new questions over its environmental credentials after admitting that wood pellet plants it is acquiring rely on burning gas to help produce “renewable” biomass. The FTSE 250 group last week struck a £420 million deal to buy Canada’s Pinnacle Renewable Energy, which operates pellet production plants in Canada and the US. Drax already operates pellet plants in the US, supplying its North Yorkshire power station.

Times 16th Feb 2021 read more »

“Weighted down with a debt of 42 billion, EDF does not have the means for its nuclear ambitions” The construction of new EPR reactors in France, suspended by Emmanuel Macron, would increase the chances of the French export sector, underlines Jean-Michel Bezat, economic journalist at “World”. Losses and profits. The CEO of EDF returned from Warsaw last week with a conviction: if France wants to sell its EPR nuclear reactors to Poland, it will have to set an example and restart the construction of the new plants itself. “We are observed by many countries which do not have that much choice, ” warned Jean-Bernard Lévy, Wednesday, February 10, during a hearing at the National Assembly. And his Polish contacts were clear: it will be France and the EDF-Framatome-Orano sector, or the United States, with General Electric or Westinghouse.

Le Monde 11th Feb 2021 read more »

As corporate reinventions go, Drax must rank among the most unlikely and controversial. The naysayers have repeatedly scoffed at the idea that a power company whose towering chimneys have been belching dirty fumes over North Yorkshire for decades could make the switch to cleaner energy. As western Europe’s biggest polluter, it looked like an impossible task. Even today, its harshest critics would maintain that its continued push into biomass is a fudge. Drax is paying £226m to acquire Pinnacle Renewable Energy, a Canadian producer of wood pellets with nine plants in British Columbia and Alberta and another two under construction. The move comes as Drax prepares for its biggest milestone yet. In March, the company will turn off its two remaining coal-generating units, having converted four coal-fired plants already and completing the move to burning biomass.

Telegraph 8th Feb 2021 read more »