EDF will sell its stake in US nuclear assets (4.2 GW)

EDF has decided to exercise its put option to sell its 49.99% in Constellation Energy Nuclear Group (CENG) to its partner, the US power utility Exelon, which owns the remaining 50.01%. CENG owns three nuclear power plants in the United States, the single-unit 576 MW R.E. Ginna and the two-unit 1,907 MW Nine Mile Point nuclear power plants located in New York and the two-unit 1,756 MW Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant located in Maryland. Exelon would become the 100% owner of the three power plants. The two parties will try to reach a consensus on the sale price; otherwise, the fair market value will be fixed by a third-party arbitration. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in one or two years (by 30 June 2022 at the latest).

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.