French Energy Company EDF posted record loss of 5.3 billion Euros. EDF produces nuclear power and is largely owned by the state. EDF said last week that they faced a loss of more than 5 billion Euros in the first half of the year. One of the problems which EDF faced was an unexpected corrosion problem at some of their nuclear reactors. So the regulators in France have asked them to stop the reactors while they investigate further and carry out safety checks. This has added to EDF’s maintenance costs and this has resulted in many power outages across France.
The production at the nuclear power plant is lowest in 30 years. EDF now instead of supplying electricity to France and rest of Europe is buying electricity. The French government also made EDF foot the bill for price caps introduced for electricity prices in France earlier this year. Such market swings has made EDF run into huge losses.
Prior to this loss, EDF was 84% owned by the French government and now the government wants to take over full ownership of EDF. However, the reasons behind this move are still not clear. This removes EDF from the glare of the markets and government argues if it has full control of EDF it can take faster decisions for the company.
Nuclear energy has been a great hope for cutting greenhouse emissions and such events undermine some of the positives of nuclear energy. France wants to build new nuclear power plants and many expert nuclear engineers that built such nuclear plants in the 80s have now disappeared. There are shortages of skilled professionals in France for nuclear energy industry currently and financial troubles like this event will not help this industry grow as France once hoped it would.