EDF Names Buyers for Polish Plant Sales

French power giant EDF has announced it is in exclusive negotiations for the sale of EDF Polska in two parts.

Following a sales process underway for most of 2016, it said October 26 it is in talks to sell its Polish combined heat and power (CHP) plants to Australia’s IFM Investors and, separately, its 1.8-GW coal-fired plant at Rybnik to Czech privately-owned utility EPH. No indicative prices were disclosed but earlier reports said together they may be worth $500mn.

As part of its radical restructuring announced April 22, EDF plans to divest €10bn of ‘non-core’ assets by 2020 to slash debt and bolster its finances in order to fund its 66% share of the £18bn, 3.2-GW Hinkley Point, UK new nuclear project. It expects to finalise both Polish deals in 1H 2017 but says it will retain a presence in Poland through its EDF Energies Nouvelles and Dalkia subsidiaries.  

EDF's Rybnik 1.8-GW coal-fired power plant (Photo credit: Szymcar)

IFM Investors is owned by 29 Australian superannuation funds; the Polish CHPs that it plans to acquire from EDF have an aggregate installed capacity of 4.4 GW heat and 1.4 GW power.

EPH has interests in Slovakia (where it co-owns gas assets SPP and Eustream), Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Poland, and also the UK where it is to convert a 2-GW coal-fired plant to gas.  

Gas supply industry association Eurogas’s new president Klaus Schafer meanwhile has called on the EU Parliament and council of ministers to “make the EU Emissions Trading System work.” The Uniper CEO said talks to date on revising the EU ETS Directive had focused on carbon leakage issues that are important for European industry but added: “Now is the time to adapt the ETS in such a way that GHG emissions are reduced cost-efficiently via the carbon price.” He called for the removal of ETS allowances to be done faster than the proposed five-year period.

Mark Smedley