This is the first blow of the pickaxe in the great building site of the new French nuclear power. Luc Rémont, who arrived at the head of EDF last November, announced on Thursday June 28 a major reorganization of the group’s nuclear activities, Reuters revealed.
According to our information, five new departments will be put in place, structured around the group’s businesses, all reporting directly to Luc Rémont. This new organization should be in place at the beginning of next year. It will have a production department, which will be in charge of operations; another will be in charge of project management, schematically the construction of new reactors – EPR 2 – wanted by the government as part of the nuclear recovery plan. Six EPR2s, or even 14, could be built in France. A third will be devoted to project management, in charge of preparing construction programs, authorizations (permitting), financing of new nuclear projects. Engineering is given its own direction, as is industry, which will bring together Framatome and Arabelle turbines (acquired from GE).
For the time being, five “forerunners have been named”, explains a source to Figaro. Cédric Lewandowski for production, Xavier Ursat for project management, Bernard Fontona for industry and Alain Tranzer for engineering.
With this new organization, Luc Rémont sends a double signal. On the one hand, it shows its desire to accelerate. It puts in place all the structure necessary to initiate the preparation of new nuclear, but also to accelerate the ramp-up of current reactors. Last year, French production fell to 279 terrawatt hours (TWh) due to the shutdown of power plants linked to the discovery of microcracks (under-stressed corrosion) on certain pieces of piping. The group aims to produce between 300 and 330 TWh of nuclear electricity this year. Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the Minister for Energy Transition, asked the group to quickly increase this production by at least 30%.
The boss also comes to shake up certain baronies, by effectively limiting the field of action of some of these executive directors, starting with Cédric Lewandowski. He is currently Group Executive Director in charge of the Nuclear and Thermal Fleet Department, is in charge of nuclear production, engineering, the major refit – the major ten-year renovation and extension project for the fleet. Xavier Ursat is the Group Executive Director in charge of the Engineering and New Nuclear Projects Department.