EDF - Managing energy demand

We are working to integrate energy efficiency into our core business of power generation (through offers for electricity supply, smart metering, the promotion of efficient appliances, etc.) as well as to develop solutions for our French, English, German, and Italian markets which are appropriate to our customers' needs, with the objective to reduce their consumption and carbon footprint.

In France, within the framework of the Energy Savings Certificate scheme, we are encouraging our customers to save energy by focusing on three areas:

• Raising awareness
• Diagnosing facilities and homes in order to identify sources of energy savings
• Offering support, in close collaboration with a network of partners, to help carry out work to increase energy efficiency. 

Furthermore, to develop professional skills in these new fields, EDF is participating alongside the French Agency for Environment and Energy Management (Agence de l'Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l'Energie) and professional federations in a training program for professionals in the construction sector.

Through our Group companies, we are offering to pay in full for our customers' projects to reduce their energy expenses and CO₂ emissions, improve the energy efficiency of their facilities and use energies from renewable resources.

In the United Kingdom, EDF Energy has launched Carbon Challenge 2012 and offers its customers advice and assistance in reducing their carbon footprint. The company also offers to help business customers to reduce CO₂ by financing renewable energy projects by making a contribution of 0.4 pence per kWh consumed.

In Italy, Edison advises its customers on managing their energy consumption and has recently created a specific business dedicated to energy efficiency and sustainable development.

The EDF group has signed up to the French national conference on the environment, which aims to reduce consumption by m² of housing as well as CO₂ emissions. Due to its contribution to consumption and CO₂ emissions, heating is a priority field of action in achieving this objective. Of the different levers available to the public authorities to change behaviours and markets, the development of labels and standards is particularly effective, particularly those for homes and offices. We also believe that labelling and standardising heating appliances is one of the keys to reducing CO₂ emissions into the environment. To apply the logic of energy efficiency to all fields, such an approach must extend to every process, from the baker's oven to industrial blast furnaces.

Electricity is a smart and efficient way to optimize the consumption and carbon footprint of numerous processes. A driver that the EDF group is implementing with it customers:

• For businesses in the industrial sector, EDF is developing innovative processes, such as induction for blast furnaces, which enables less to be consumed whilst producing more.

Our engineers are currently studying the thermal properties of building panels to develop next-generation insulation systems. Building insulation is set to undergo a major step-change over the next few years as builders demand greater performance with less bulk. One of the most promising new technologies is vacuum-insulated panels, which are eight times thinner than conventional insulating materials and offer eight times better thermal performance. However, their effectiveness can be impacted by adverse weather conditions that damage their air-tight seals. To test the performance of such panels over time periods of up to 50 years, we have developed sophisticated models allowing us to measure the panels’ insulation properties under various temperature, pressure, and humidity conditions. We have already tested several feasible systems and are in talks with manufacturers to set up a joint venture.

Managing demand for energy is the greatest challenge to achieving the objective of stabilizing CO₂ emissions: energy efficiency alone represents 40% to 60% of the effort to be made to achieve this stabilization.

EDF's cooperation with low-income housing agencies on home renovation aims to reduce the CO₂ emissions of these housing units by 100,000 tonnes and generate 2.5 TWh (cumulative and discounted) of energy savings certificates between 2011 and 2013.