The third priority is to improve the environmental acceptability of our production facilities. Climate change, the marked decline in biodiversity and Earth’s limited resources make EDF a legitimate choice for a low-carbon energy mix. The aim of the R&D Division’s initiatives is:
Therefore, for many years, EDF has set up research teams dedicated to biodiversity issues. In 2018, an ambitious research programme was launched to develop efficient tools to assess and control its impacts on biodiversity.
Digital transition impacts the entire electric power system and is a key driver of the electric and climate transitions described above. The information technology research programme focuses on:
This digital transition is also synonymous with progress: the use of advanced digital techniques (deployment of virtual reality, use of metamodels or learning methods, etc.) has, in particular, enabled the Framatome subsidiary to increase the productivity of its engineering studies.
In addition, a digital platform, based on cloud technology, is currently being deployed at EDF Renewables. It is designed to utilise EDF Renewables’ production data, from assets in all its territories, in the same “data lake”. The ultimate goal is to improve asset production and reduce operating and maintenance costs.
Artificial intelligence is one of R&D’s research priorities, both its digital and semantic aspects. R&D has been instrumental in the dissemination of its methods within the businesses through its contributions to the adoption of data lakes, the launch of common platforms for data analytics and the Group AI Task Force. AI is a key aspect for the Group’s businesses:
Blockchains offer another example of R&D’s significant contribution to the incubation of a new digital technology. Two years after R&D launched this project, the Group has various experiments in progress, including several pilot projects. Under the impetus of the Group Blockchains Task Force, a “Blockchain Lab” provides “end-to-end” expertise, from consulting to the operation of blockchain applications integrated into the information system, as well as an industrial policy and partnerships adapted to the challenges and level of maturity of these technologies.
To support digital transition, R&D invests in powerful supercomputers that are essential for physics simulation studies and artificial intelligence machine learning models.
More than ever, the various types of energy are also at the core of the challenges facing modern societies, with issues raised about its availability, its climatic, environmental, economic and geopolitical impacts, the resilience of energy systems, and access to energy for all. The goal to achieve energy transition by 2050 will require rapid shifts over the next 30 years in terms of uses, technical and industrial changes, and changes in lifestyles and consumption patterns. The challenge of carbon neutrality may cause unprecedented changes in the major systems that structure our lives. It is therefore essential to anticipate the societal and social consequences of these developments, in relation to the independent dynamics at work in society today. R&D develops specific tools to understand these societal issues and employs researchers in human and social sciences who work to understand these developments:
To conduct its research and development programmes, EDF R&D develops a large number of partnerships worldwide, the purpose of which is to maintain its expertise at the highest global level in the disciplines central to EDF’s concerns, and to supplement its internal reservoir of skills.
R&D’s partnership policy is embodied in a variety of ways, both nationally and internationally.
In France, R&D has entered into framework agreements with major public research organisations. In 2019, the framework agreement with the National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS), the leading R&D partner both in terms of number and volume of contracts, was renewed for a term of five years. Over the past few years, R&D has also set up about fifteen laboratories on a joint basis with academic partners and technical or industrial centres. With them, it is participating in collaborative research projects funded by several national or European desks. Each shared laboratory offers an opportunity to establish a combined team in order to focus on a common scientific and technical problem, with a view to creating value, expertise and knowledge for all partners; this constitutes a major asset when taking part in cooperative projects. R&D also supports a few specially targeted teaching and research chairs.
In the field of nuclear R&D, a three-way agreement between CEA, EDF and Framatome was renewed in 2017. This collaboration takes place within a Tripartite Institute, which aims to increase the coordination of R&D programmes between the partners and to structure programmes that are defined with reference to objectives, particularly industrial objectives, and that are carried out applying the technological building blocks of the Nuclear Plant of the Future.
R&D is also active within the Energy Transition Institutes (ITE), which have been setup pursuant to the Future Investments Programme, such as the Île-de-France Photovoltaic Institute (IPVF), France Énergies Marines, which focuses on marine energies and offshore wind power, and Vedecom, which works on electric mobility.
EDF group is also the driving force behind ConnexITy, an R&D programme aimed at connecting, through digital technology, players in the nuclear sector in order to simplify power plant operation, site preparation and design.
