EDF completes sale of its 50% interest in US nuclear group CENG

EDF has completed the sale of its 49.99% stake in Constellation Energy Nuclear Group (CENG) to its partner, the US power utility Exelon, which owns the remaining 50.01% and will become the sole shareholder, for US$885m. CENG owns three nuclear power plants in the United States, the single-unit 560 MW R.E. Ginna and the two-unit 1,890 MW Nine Mile Point nuclear power plants located in New York and the two-unit 1,732 MW Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant located in Maryland. These five nuclear units have been integrated into Exelon's power generation fleet since 2014.

EDF entered the US nuclear market in 2008, when the company bought stake in Constellation Energy to build EPR reactors in the United States. However, the project was abandoned after the NRC had rejected a proposal to build a third nuclear reactor at Constellation’s Calvert Cliffs nuclear station in Maryland in November 2012. In 2013, EDF and Exelon signed an agreement on CENG, under the terms of which EDF would delegate the operational management of these reactors to Exelon and would benefit from a put option on Exelon at the fair value of EDF’s stake in CENG, to be exercised between January 2016 and June 2022. EDF decided to exercise its put option and to sell its stake in November 2019.