EDF and Enel plan Italy’s nuclear revival

By Guy Dinmore in Rome
Published: February 23 2009 23:29

France’s EDF and Enel of Italy – Europe’s largest utilities – are set to relaunch Italy’s nuclear industry after a 22-year hiatus.
The move will follow an accord due to be signed in Rome today by President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
The choice of the two energy companies – both in effect state-controlled – reflects the “national champions” policy of both governments.
It confirms the dominance in Europe of EDF and French nuclear technology in the form of the next generation European Pressurised Reactor (EPR).
Industry sources said Enel would be the majority shareholder in a consortium with EDF. A later phase could bring in other shareholders, including Edison,a utility majority-owned by EDF, and possibly industrial consumers of electricity.
Claudio Scajola, Italian minister for economic development, said the accord would “concern all aspects of nuclear power,” including technical co-operation. The Italian parliament would approve a bill setting out a nuclear strategy next month, he said.
Mr Scajola did not specifically mention the Enel-EDF consortium. But he said that Enel’s international growth and its existing collaboration with EDF strengthened Italy’s national energy policy.
Italians voted in a referendum in 1987 – a year after Ukraine’s Chernobyl disaster – to ditch nuclear power. Italy’s relatively advanced nuclear capability was mothballed or dismantled. It imported nuclear-derived electricity from France instead.
Mr Berlusconi’s centre-right government, supported by industry but with public opinion divided, has a target of producing 25 per cent of national electricity from nuclear power.
Recalling the quarrels within Italy’s nuclear industry in the 1980s when it introduced four competing technologies, Carlo Bollino, professor of energy economics at Rome’s Luiss university, said the government had made a good, pragmatic decision to bring together EDF and Enel.
He doubted the first concrete would be poured for five to seven years as Italy must first rebuild its nuclear safety authority and identify sites. Mr Scajola says that he wants to start building by 2013.
Jean-Michel Glachant, director of the Florence School of Regulation, said entry into Italy was very important for EDF, noting it was difficult to do business there “if you are not politically connected”.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009