EDF_REGISTRATION_DOCUMENT_2017

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PRESENTATION OF EDF GROUP Research & development, patents and licences

the significant development of information technology applied to energy, offering ■ new opportunities for the electricity business; the changing behaviours of clients: consumers and local authorities who are also ■ becoming producers, and seeking to consume more effectively, living in buildings, neighbourhoods and cities that have greater energy autonomy. In this context, R&D’s role is crucial when it comes to finding solutions to all of these challenges. Its avenues of research are structured around three broad priorities: developing and experimenting with new energy services for clients, enabling ■ demand-side management that is both flexible and low-carbon, thanks to improvements in knowledge of demand, the development by clients of energy efficiency, the promotion of new, effective uses of electricity, often in combination with renewable energies (heat pumps, electric mobility, etc.), the development of technical and economic modelling to engineer buildings, industry and sustainable cities, and the development of uses and consumption being integrated into the electricity system itself through the use of smart grids and appropriate pricing; preparing the electricity systems of the future, by: optimising the lifespan of ■ network infrastructures and accompanying adaptation of the electricity system by improving network asset management; implementing optimisation models and economic scenarios for new infrastructure projects relating to energy transport; inserting intermittent energies; and developing smart grids; consolidating and developing competitive low-carbon production mixes: One of ■ the major challenges of the transition is to ensure the efficient co-existence of traditional means of generation, notably by further improving the security and performance of the existing nuclear plant as well as its operating lifespan, with the development of new renewable energies by improving their performance and integration into the energy systems. In addition to its overall activity, R&D has also identified four research programmes that fall into the “disruptive - future-ready” category. They are: energy storage, photovoltaic energy and electric mobility which we deem to be ■ paramount to the evolution of the electricity system: Storage: doubling of the R&D workforces between 2018-2020, ■ PV: opening of the Île-de-France Photovoltaic Institute (IPVF) at the end of ■ 2017; support for the 30GW solar power plan, Mobility: activities pertaining to charging vehicles and battery life; ■ local energy services and systems, with industrial fine-tuning of technical ■ resources for urban planning and definition of optimum procedures to incorporate local energy systems within an overall national system; the use of digital technology in customer relations to offer innovative services ■ and, within our own industry, to improve monitoring of our installations and maintenance forecasting, small modular reactors: small reactors that could be used, in particular, to address ■ the market for areas that are isolated or suffer from weak transmission links. EDF’s R&D is both integrated and cross-disciplinary, in order to facilitate synergies and method transfers between the different divisions within the group. In 2017, the group’s overall research and development budget amounted to €611 million, €546 million of which was earmarked for the EDF R&D budget. This is one of the largest R&D budgets of any major electricity company. Approximately two-thirds of this budget is devoted to programmes put together on a yearly basis under contractual agreements with EDF’s operational divisions and subsidiaries. The remaining third goes to medium and long-term anticipation initiatives that fall within Group R&D priority areas. In 2017, approximately 19% of this budget was devoted to protecting the environment. In particular, expenditures covered research into energy efficiency, uses of electricity as a substitute for fossil fuels, renewable energies and their insertion into the grid, sustainable cities, the local impacts of climate change and other R&D ORGANISATION AND KEY 1.6.1 FIGURES

environmental issues such as biodiversity, water quality, and the mitigation of disturbances. EDF’s R&D Division employs 1,941 staff (1,892 FTE) in France, representing 27 nationalities; 83.9% have manager status, 31.8% are women, 121 are Ph.D. students and 59 are on work study programmes. Around 160 researchers teach in universities and major engineering schools. Including Edison and EDF Energy, this total number of staff is 2,160 (a FTE of 2,118). The EDF R&D Division, which hired 63 people in 2017, channels its employees towards other entities of the EDF group. In 2017 the result of this mobility was a net reduction in headcount of 81. The R&D Division is made up of 13 technical departments. Their skills cover all the Group's field of activities: renewable energies and storage, networks, nuclear generation, thermal, hydropower, energy management, trade and services, IT systems, environment. They are specific to particular disciplines, business lines and projects, and also come together for work on major systems. EDF’s R&D Division manages an internal training body, the Technology Transfer Institute (Institut de Transfert de Technologie, ITech), whose purpose is to disseminate EDF’s R&D practices, know how and innovations to the rest of the EDF group. Some ITECH training courses are open to other companies. ITECH has a catalogue of training courses (out of the 130 courses on offer, 56 were available to professionals from outside the Group in 2017), which is updated each year. ITECH generated €214,000 of revenue in 2017; its training courses are also used by the Vocational Academies (see section 3.3.1.3 “Skill development: preparing for the future”). At present, the R&D Division is organised on a multi-site basis. Three are located in France in the greater Paris area and six worldwide: Germany, United Kingdom, China, United States, Singapore and Italy. The Chatou and Les Renardières (near Fontainebleau) centres respectively have workforces of 451 and 552 people. The new EDF Lab centre in Paris Saclay has a workforce of around 938 people. Around 230 researchers work outside France, including some 30 expatriates. EDF's main R&D centre, formerly located in Clamart was inaugurated in 2016, in Palaiseau, on the Paris-Saclay campus, with the arrival, since the month of March, of employees previously based in Clamart. With this new facility, which is intended to accommodate up to 1,500 people, including Group researchers, Ph.D. students, interns and partners, EDF is setting fresh ambitions for its R&D and placing scientific and industrial innovation and research at the heart of its priorities. The new EDF training centre which is located in the immediate vicinity of the R&D centre, opened its doors in September 2016. Together on one site, the new research centre and training centre form the EDF Lab Paris-Saclay complex. This strategic decision positions EDF as a leading player on the Paris-Saclay campus, thereby enabling it to benefit from more dynamic collaboration with the higher education establishments and public and private-sector research centres located nearby. In addition, a number of partnership agreements have been concluded with other institutions of the Paris-Saclay University: SEIDO, a joint EDF-Telecom Paris Tech laboratory dedicated to the Internet of ■ Things and cyber security for electricity systems. Its mission is to prepare and facilitate the deployment of energy demand management and energy efficiency services, making use of interoperable, communicating energy-related objects (heating, air conditioning, white and brown goods, electric vehicles, etc.), thereby helping to provide coherence for the system as a whole, as well as safety (security, confidentiality, and so on); the shared Rise Grid laboratory, devoted to the modelling and simulation of ■ smart grids, in association with the Supélec engineering school; the SEISM Institute for modelling the effects of seismic activity from fault lines ■ through to structures, which was founded by EDF, the French Atomic Energy Commission, CentraleSupélec, the École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay and the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS); PGMO, the Gaspard Monge Programme for optimisation and operational ■ research, housed by the Jacques Hadamard Mathematics Foundation, and established with the patronage of EDF’s R&D Division; IMSIA, the Institute of Mechanical Sciences and Industrial Applications, which ■ since June 2015 has brought together ENSTA, CNRS, and CEA Saclay alongside EDF; the Energy Finance and Markets laboratory, shared with Dauphine University, ■ ENSAE and École polytechnique;

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EDF I Reference Document 2017