With a fuel oil supply volume of approximately 1.1 million tonnes and 0.7 million tonnes of coal processed in 2020, EDF Trading Logistics acts as EDF’s vehicle for fuel oil and liquid biomass purchases. It organises fuel oil, liquid biomass and coal supply logistics operations for all of the EDF group’s thermal plants in mainland France,Corsica and France’s overseas departments, in close collaboration with DOAAT, EDFPEI and SEI. It controls the coal terminals in the ports of Le Havre and Montoir deBretagne.
In addition, EDF Trading Logistics provides the Group its expertise in regard to managing risks relating to the transport of fuel oil (hazardous materials), an activity that has received ISO 14001 certification which was renewed on 31 October 2019, and in the management of environmental crises arising from this activity.
The EDF group’s Research & Development (R&D) activities are handled on the one hand by the Research & Development Division – EDF R&D and on the other by certainGroup subsidiaries. These activities are complementary and in line with the Group’sCAP 2030 strategy. A Charte R&D coordination scheme for these has been drawn upat Group level.
EDF group’s R&D is both integrated and cross-disciplinary, in order to facilitate synergies and method transfers between the different divisions within the Group. It employs 2,663(1) persons worldwide.
Skills cover all the Group’s field of activities: renewable energies and storage, networks, nuclear generation, thermal, hydropower, energy management, trade and services, IT systems, environment. They are specific to particular disciplines, business lines and projects, and also come together for work on major systems.
EDF R&D is currently organised on a multi-site basis, with several sites located inFrance and abroad, mainly in Germany, the UK, China, the United States, Singapore and Italy.
EDF R&D’s main centre is located in Palaiseau on the Paris-Saclay campus where it opened in 2016. At end 2020 EDF’s R&D employed 1,839 people in France representing 30 nationalities.
The main missions of the EDF group’s Research and Development Division (R&D) are firstly, to support the Group’s divisions and subsidiaries on a day to day basis, by providing them with its top-level expertise and high performance practices, and secondly, to contribute to build the Group’s future by anticipating the developments and major challenges with which it is confronted.
In 2020, EDF group defined its raison d’être: “To build a net zero energy future with electricity and innovative solutions and services, to help save the planet and drive wellbeing and economic development".
R&D is now engaged in the pursuit of this goal. Its avenues of research are structured around three broad topics:
In 2020, the EDF group’s total R&D budget was €685.2 million. It comprises EDF’sR&D budget of €518 million, as well as the research carried out by certain wholly-owned subsidiaries, mainly Framatome, EDF Energy and Edison. This is one of the largest R&D budgets of any major electricity company.
It should be noted that 98% of EDF R&D’s operating budget in France is dedicated to decarbonation and energy systems transition. In particular, expenditures covered research into energy efficiency, uses of electricity as a substitute for fossil fuels, renewable energies and their insertion into the grid, energy production and storage, carbon-free hydrogen and its applications for decarbonising the economy, sustainable cities, the local impacts of climate change and other environmental issues such as biodiversity, water quality, and the mitigation of disturbances.
EDF R&D’s work serves all the Group’s business lines. For each of them, it offers technological solutions or innovative business and economic models designed to improve their performance, and prepare the Group’s future in the longer term by means of medium and long-term anticipation initiatives. It is one of the factors in EDF becoming a global industrial group providing low-carbon electricity systems.
Its research focuses on three main areas, in line with the CAP 2030 project:
The research work on grids led on behalf of Enedis is carried out under a services contract, which defines obligations that guarantee the protection of commercially sensitive information and compliance with the principle of the independent management of the distributor. Enedis also has a complementary R&D programme, independently of that agreed for EDF R&D.
The development of energy efficiency, distributed renewable energies, new energy storage solutions, regulatory and technological changes (digitisation and smart meters) as well as market deregulation, have all led to profound changes in the relationship between energy firms and their customers. They allow customers to be actively involved in their consumption and production of energy, on an individual or regional scale.
Shifts in European and French legislation and regulation, exemplified by the EU’sClean energy for all Europeans Package and France’s National Low-Carbon Strategy(SNBC) and multiyear energy programme (PPE), as well as various tax incentives to replace fossil fuels with clean electricity (batteries vs combustion engines, heat pumps vs oil-fired boilers) are shaping the future energy landscape.
Technical/economic and regulatory work done by R&D, some of it in partnership withFrance’s Building Scientific and Technical Centre (CSTB) have clearly demonstrated that generalising electric applications in homes and service sector buildings is consistent with the trajectory established by France’s National Low-Carbon Strategy. Shared during the public consultation phase prior to the first environmental legislation covering new builds, these findings have helped ensure built assets are firmly set on a course to becoming carbon-neutral, with an initial milestone as soon as 2021.
(1) Calculated as full-time FTEs.
