After having shut down ten units between 2013 and 2015, EDF retained three generation plants based on recent technology and located in Le Havre (1 unit) and Cordemais (2 units). A renovation programme for these units was completed between 2014 and 2016 in order to improve their reliability and efficiency.
They are equipped with flue gas desulphurisation and denitrification systems (90% reduction in sulphur dioxide emissions and 80% reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions) as well as dust collectors that trap virtually all dust. These treatments allow the units to meet environmental regulatory requirements in force since 2016.
France’s 2019-2028 multi-year energy programme (PPE) calls for the cessation of electricity production based on this fuel by 2022. However, RTE’s most recent provisional review reveals the need, in some scenarios, to maintain limited production at the Cordemais power plant until 2024, or perhaps even 2026. The Depreciation periods for the Le Havre and Cordemais power plants were therefore adjusted in 2019. Furthermore, the French “Climate and Energy” Act specifies a maximum threshold for CO2 emissions for these plants that restricts their operating potential to no more than several hundred hours a year after 2022. This legal mechanism makes the operator responsible for deciding whether or not to continue operating such installations after 2022, and makes no provision for compensation.
At the end of 2019, EDF announced that it had decided to halt production at the Le Havre power plant on 1 April 2021.
In another development, in 2016 EDF launched the Ecocombust project to develop fuel from green waste and wood waste. On 24 January 2019, EDF and the Ministry Of Ecological and Solidarity Transition approved a working programme prior to a decision on the Ecocombust project. In 2020, this working programme should qualify the technical tests, environment impact studies and the project’s business model. Subject to satisfactory conclusions at the technical and environmental levels, and following continued discussions with the French government and local authorities, EDF aims at starting the industrialisation phase for fuel production from 2022. This fuel would be used in co-combustion with a small percentage of coal in the Cordemais power plant boilers from 2022 onwards.
More generally, the Group is working to optimise the performance of all of its thermal fleet.
EDF decided to permanently shut down the Aramon thermal plant on 1 April 2016 and the Porcheville and Cordemais unit 2 thermal plants in the spring of 2017 as they had been scarcely used over the past number of years.
EDF also permanently shut down the last oil-fired unit (Cordemais 3) in the spring of 2018.
EDF commissioned the first Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) plant in France at Blénod in 2011, then two CCGT plants at Martigues in 2012 and 2013 followed by a next-generation CCGT plant at Bouchain in 2016 in partnership with General Electric. This modernisation of the thermal generation fleet reduces its atmospheric emissions of CO2, nitrogen oxides and sulphur oxides.
The CCGTs in Martigues are the result of the repowering of former oil-fired units, apart of whose facilities, such as the steam turbine, the condenser and the water treatment facilities, were reused. The repowering of a unit of this capacity is a first in Europe. The installed capacity of the Martigues site is 930MW and the return is over 50%, markedly higher than the return from coal-fired thermal units, for example.
The CCGT plant at Bouchain is equipped with General Electric’s new high-capacity “9HA” turbine. The innovative 9HA CCGT delivers improved capacity (600MW achievable in under 30 minutes) and return (over 60%, versus an average return for standard CCGT of 57-58%) and offers good environmental performance with CO2 emissions of around 360g/KWh on average, one-third of those of the old neighbouring coal-fired plant shut down in 2015. Under specific operating conditions it generated a record return of 62.22%. As a prototype it underwent testing from when it was commissioned in the spring of 2016 to when ownership was transferred from General Electric to EDF in December 2017. The facility operates steadily in 2019 (6,015 hours) and generated 2.8TWh.
Today, EDF’s thermal power plants are operated within the context of regulations that apply to installations classified for environmental protection purposes (Installations classées pour la protection de l’environnement – ICPE), as well as regulations relating to greenhouse gas emissions and a specific regulation for air quality (see section 1.5.3.1 “Regulations applicable to fossil fuel-fired energy generation”).
In 2019, EDF’s thermal power plants in mainland France emitted 5.4 million tonnes of CO2 (6.4 million tonnes in 2018) for a net electricity generation of about 9.85TWh (11TWh in 2018). The CO2 content per kWh generated by EDF’s thermal power plants in mainland France in 2019 is 545g/kWh net i.e. the lowest CO2 footprint in EDF’s entire thermal history (579g/kWh net in 2018). This decarbonisation of EDF’s thermal kWh is the direct result of the ramp up of the share of CCGT plants in EDF’s thermal generation mix, which contributed over 89% of the production of the thermal generation fleet in 2019 (compared with 62% in 2018). It is to be noted that in 2010, the CO2 content per kWh generated by EDF’s thermal fleet in mainland France was still more than 900g CO2/kWh net.
In 2019, EDF’s thermal generation fleet in mainland France also emitted 0.7kt of SO2, 2.6kt of NOx and 0.02kt of dust. Per kWh generated, polluting emissions from EDF’s thermal plants have fallen compared with 2010 by four times for NOx, by over ten times for SO2 and by over twenty times for dust. These drastic reductions in emissions were made possible by the shutdown of the oldest thermal plants, the renovation and installation of smoke treatment equipment using the best techniques available at the most recent plants, the use of low sulphur fuel and the commissioning of low pollution natural gas combined cycle turbines.
The environmental performance of the thermal fleet in mainland France is fully in keeping with the objectives set out in the new Sustainable Development policy of the EDF group signed in June 2018 and in particular:
Thermal generation in 2019 amounted to 9.85TWh with a lower level of operation than in 2018 given the stagnating consumption in France.
In 2019, coal units supplied 0.8TWh, CCGT plants 8.8TWh and oil-fired units 0.2 KWh. Minimising unplanned outages is the essential aim for facilities such as thermal plants, used for mid-merit and peak generation. The priority for these means of generation required on a variable basis all year round is to ensure system security by ensuring maximum reliability and availability.
The reliability of the thermal fleet was confirmed in 2019 and meets European Standards. The fleet’s adaptability to a sustained level of operation was demonstrated. The response rate achieved by combustion turbines to requests from optimisation services and from RTE was very good. In a tense balance between supply and demand, the combustion turbines fully played their role in maintaining the system’s safety.
EDF has planned all of the decommissioning operations on its thermal fleet units which were shut down or whose shutdown is scheduled. The provisions for these operations have been made in an amount that corresponds to the cost of decommissioning all of the units being operated and the clean-up of the sites (see section 6.1 “Consolidated financial statements at 31 December 2019”, note 33 of the appendix to the consolidated financial statements at 31 December 2019).
In 2019, EDF continued the decommissioning work on sites that had been definitively shut down. Most of the work carried out in 2019 related to asbestos removal from the Cordemais and Le Havre units and deconstruction at Cordemais, Vitry, and Richemont.
Following on from this work, EDF commissioned and carried out a number of expert appraisal and ground depollution works, in particular at Ambès, Loire-sur-Rhône, and Porcheville.
EDF is careful to preserve the potential of its sites to the greatest extent possible, with precision allocation of space and the implementation of local monitoring of planning regulations so as to secure its own needs.
This differentiated ground and space management has made it possible to free up EDF land from occupancy issues (freeing up new land resources, biodiversity potential, and restoring natural land), taking into account the Group’s new needs and assisting local authorities with the development of new types of activity.
