Universal Registration Document 2022

Local Energy Management

In 2019, the EDF group created the Local Energy Management (LEM) entity to speed up the development of innovative offers relating to decentralised energy management. LEM provides coordination for companies that are expanding through intrapreneurship or acquisition-based growth, including Agregio, DREEV, e2m, PowerShift, and Store & Forecast, in a range of business lines:

• aggregating, managing, and promoting local flexibility, both upstream (intermittent production from wind and solar farms, flexible storage or generation facilities) and downstream (consumer load shedding capacities);
• marketing renewable energy production through new supply models such as Power Purchase Agreements (providing renewable energy from renewables producers), Virtual Power Plant platforms, and peer-to-peer sales, through which residential customers can buy from producers using blockchain;
• smart charging solutions for electric mobility;
• software solutions for energy optimisation of local electricity systems through energy forecasting and storage.

A wholly-owned subsidiary of EDF, Agregio is an aggregator directed at three types of customers:

• producers of renewable electricity (wind and solar power, etc.), to which Agregio offers tailored solutions, to optimise and sell/deliver their production, capacity and origin guarantees, on the electricity markets or to consumers, thereby securing their long-term revenues;
• electricity consumers (industries, companies, etc.): Agregio is aimed at consumers who are willing to load shed or modulate their consumption in exchange for compensation, according to the needs of the electricity system;
• managers of storage facilities. Agregio also optimises storage systems.

Energy2market (e2m), is a company specialising in the aggregation of renewable production and local flexibilities. It manages and operates over 5,000 smart, decentralised energy production and flexibility sites (wind farms, solar farms, cogeneration sites, biomass plants, storage batteries, etc.), which represent a total installed capacity of over 4.2GW.

At the end of 2022, the EDF group was one of the European leaders on these new markets, with a portfolio of 10GW of decentralised assets.

1.4.6.2 Gas business

The EDF group’s gas strategy aims to ensure the security of gas supply for its 6.4 million customers ⁽¹⁾, its cogeneration plants and its gas power plants.

Thus, the EDF group is present on the natural gas market in France and across Europe, mainly through Edison, EDF Energy, and Luminus. Since August 2017, Edison has become the EDF group’s gas platform under a service agreement to manage the assets of the Group ⁽²⁾. EDF also relies on EDF Trading for its short-term operations relating to transactions on the continental and United Kingdom wholesale markets, and on Dalkia (for cogeneration plants).

The optimisation of EDF’s LNG asset portfolio flexibility is managed by JERA Global Markets, a joint venture between EDF Trading Limited (33.33%) and JERA Trading International Pte (66.67%).

1.4.6.2.1 Natural gas end-market

In Europe, on 31 December 2022, the downstream customer portfolios were as follows: 

• France (EDF and Électricité de Strasbourg): around 2.4  million customers (ranging from retail to key accounts), with a total volume sold of around 40.5TWh;
• Italy (Edison): around 0.9 million customers, with a total volume sold of around 73TWh of gas;
• United Kingdom (EDF Energy ⁽³⁾): around 2.3 million customers, with a volume sold of around 29.2TWh;
• Belgium (Luminus): around 0.8 million customers, with a total volume sold of around 13.9TWh.

1.4.6.2.2 Gas assets and projects

Supply sources

In Europe, the Group’s gas and LNG supply comes from:

• short- and medium-term wholesale gas markets; and
• a diversified portfolio of long-term contracts, originating from Qatar, the United States, the North Sea, North Africa and Azerbaijan.

In the United States, the majority of the supplies originate from the wholesale gas markets and is exported in the form of LNG via long-term liquefaction and transport contracts. In the rest of the world, specific contracts have been signed to ensure the supply of the Group’s gas power plants.

With the aim of maintaining its position on the end market, the Group optimises and diversifies its portfolio of medium and long-term sources of gas. For LNG, EDF has entered into medium and long-term contracts, primarily with the goal of enhancing the regasification capacity of the Dunkirk LNG terminal.

In 2021, Edison started importing one billion cubic metres of gas per year from Azerbaijan under a long-term contract ⁽⁴⁾. Edison’s contract for the supply of Russian gas was not renewed in 2023 due to current geopolitical conditions. From 2023 onwards, Edison will import gas from the USA under its agreement with Venture Global.

Infrastructures

Gas pipelines and Liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification terminals

Apart from its various rights to transport capacity in the European network, the EDF group participates, through its Edison subsidiary, in infrastructure projects for gas importation ⁽⁴⁾.

In line with the Group’s Gas strategy, EDF is the main shipper that uses the Dunkirk LNG terminal in the long term.

EDF retains the right to use 80% of the Rovigo offshore terminal’s regasification capacity, i.e. 6.4 billion cubic metres per year ⁽⁴⁾, through Edison.

The Group also holds regasification capacities in the terminal of Zeebrugge (Belgium).

Small scale LNG supply chain

Since 2018, Edison has been overseeing the small scale LNG project, the aim of which is to develop a supply chain to sell LNG in Italy, as well as helping reduce CO2emissions for road and sea transport. Edison has completed construction of the first coastal storage facility in Ravenna which became commercially available in 2021, with capacity of over 1 million cubic metres of LNG per year (with Edison entitled to use 85% of this). Supply of LNG to the depot is via a small-scale LNG terminal.

Besides, benefiting from funds tied to the Italian recovery and resilience plan PNRR (Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza), Edison recently became eligible for a subsidy of €45-65 million for the construction of the Brindisi storage facility ⁽⁴⁾. The final investment decision remains to be made.

Storage

In Germany, the EDF group has storage for natural gas in salt cavities located in Etzel. EDF has around 180 million cubic metres of volume capacity. The aboveground facilities are operated through a 50/50 joint venture with EnBW.

With respect to storage activities of the Group in Italy and in the United Kingdom, see respectively, sections 1.4.5.2.3.5 “Regulated activities - gas storage” and 1.4.5.1.2.3 “Thermal generation and gas storage”.

The Group also holds storage rights in the Netherlands, Belgium and France.