Since 1986, Electricians Without Borders (EWB), of which EDF and Enedis are partners, has been striving to overcome unequal access to electricity and water worldwide.
Since 2019, EDF Norte Fluminense has partnered with Litro de Luz, an international organisation that operates in over 20 countries. In Brazil, several projects have had a direct impact on more than 10,000 people. Actions are designed to provide lighting to communities that either have no access to electricity or no domestic electricity supply. The technology used is ecologically sustainable and made from plastic bottles, solar panels, and LED lamps. Projects last 12 months and can be extended.
Near the Santa Lidia power plant, in the city of Cabrero, the Group participated in 2022 in the “Ensemble, nous éclairons notre communauté de Charrúa” (“Together, let’s light up our community of Charrúa”) programme, installing 64 LED street lights.
The Group is committed to contributing to the development of the industrial sectors needed for the energy transition (renewable energies, batteries, hydrogen, etc.) or their revitalisation (nuclear) by developing, adapting and redeploying the necessary skills, and setting up support, retraining and protection schemes for employees for a just transition.
The Group’s contribution to the creation of new industries is especially noteworthy in the fields of offshore wind power and graphite reactor decommissioning.
The three offshore wind power projects at Fécamp, Courseulles-sur-Mer and Saint-Nazaire, with combined total capacity of 1,428MW, were awarded to EDF by the French government in April 2012. Destined to play a key role in the development of the French offshore wind power industry, they are the product of extensive consultation and grassroots work conducted by EDF Renewables and its partners with local stakeholders, government departments, industry, non-profit associations, and local residents. Though the projects in Fécamp and Courseulles-sur-Mer are still in the construction phase, full commissioning has been effective since November 2022 for the Saint-Nazaire project.
A partnership entered into with Siemens Gamesa covers the supply of wind turbines to 2 projects in France (Fécamp and Courseulles); wind turbines for the Saint-Nazaire project will be supplied by GE Renewables Energy.
Since the commissioning, the Saint-Nazaire wind farm produces the equivalent of the annual electricity consumption of 700,000 people, corresponding to 20% of electricity consumption in Loire-Atlantique. The EDF group is thus involved in the creation of a new French industrial sector and new jobs, in particular in Loire-Atlantique.
The Graphite Industrial Demonstrator (démonstrateur industriel graphite, DIG) near Chinon (Indre-et-Loire) is a key installation for graphite reactor decommissioning, allowing physical and digital tests to be carried out on models of these reactors. Construction was completed at the end of 2021 and involved a consortium of local contractors (80% of purchases and services were local). The site was inaugurated in the presence of elected officials, local stakeholders and partners, who could see that EDF had kept its commitments, the opportunity this facility provides regarding the creation of direct jobs (twenty or more between EDF and its subsidiary Graphitech), and the springboard for innovation that this facility represents.
For the 2022-2023 period the European Inno4graph project coordinated by EDF/ DP2D featured 13 decommissioning stakeholders, including the CEA, SOGIN (Italy), and LEI (Lithuania), as well as Graphitech and Cyclife Digital Solutions, two EDF subsidiaries. The aim of this project is to design NUGG reactor decommissioning tools, which will be tested in the demonstrator.
The DIG is the first EDF installation to receive the International Atomic Energy Agency’s “Collaborating Centre” label. This label provides recognition from the international community for EDF’s graphite reactor decommissioning strategy. It features a programme of works over the 2021-2025 period.
The excell plan, which was announced in December 2019 and launched in spring 2020, aims to enable the French nuclear industry to restore the most stringent standards and the highest levels of quality and excellence to be at the forefront of major nuclear projects. In November 2021, EDF group and the nuclear industry made 30 public commitments, spread across 5 priority areas of work (governance, skills, manufacturing and construction, supplier relationship and standardisation). 27 of these 30 commitments have met or exceeded the targets set. They are currently applied every day in the field. The final 3 commitments, which are particularly exacting, have been partially achieved and will be fully met in the course of 2023. The excell plan has now entered a new phase, with the aim of sustainably establishing its principles across the business.
With half of employees who are set to work in the nuclear field in 2030 not yet involved in the sector, the issue is attracting, training and recruiting, then boosting the experience and skills of newly-hired employees. Multiple actions were taken in 2022 to deal with the issues of the sector’s attractiveness, and capitalising on and developing skills.
Stakeholders in the sector got involved to prepare the sector for upcoming challenges, particularly the issue of skills. In late 2019, GIFEN called on the French Labour Ministry and the relevant sectors of industry (metallurgy and the electrical and gas industries) to finance an employment and skills development commitment programme (EDEC). The 2-year nuclear sector EDEC was signed in March 2021 with a budget of more than €1,500,000, forming the cornerstone of the structure that will provide the sector with the right resources at the right time.
All the commitments are available online (edf.fr/plan-excel). For further details on 2022’s achievements in the plan’s 5 major areas of focus, see section 1.4.1.1.1 “The excell plan”.
