By Benjamin Mallet
PARIS (Reuters) -EDF is in talks with three companies to power their 1 gigawatt (GW) data centre projects in France, an executive at the French utility said on Thursday, as demand for the power-hungry operations booms on growing use of artificial intelligence.
State-owned EDF is the world’s largest producer of nuclear power, which is increasingly viewed as a potential source of clean energy for technology companies.
In the U.S., where data centre power use is expected to roughly triple between 2023 and 2030, several large technology firms have signed nuclear power deals in recent months.
Last month, Microsoft and Constellation Energy signed a power deal to help resurrect a unit of the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, the site of the worst U.S. nuclear accident in 1979.
In France, data centres have so far only required 100 or 200 megawatts of power, but “colossal” new 1 GW projects would change that, Marc Benayoun, executive director in charge of clients and territories at EDF, told a press briefing.
He declined to comment on which companies were involved and said they were still seeking suitable sites.
They would significantly boost demand for French electricity, however, which has not fully recovered from a pandemic-induced downturn and lower consumption prompted by the European energy crisis in 2022.
France is set to export up to 90 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity this year, Benayoun said, a record, also helped by lower prices compared with neighbour Germany.
Additional demand from the new data centres would be 20 to 30 TWh, he added, though cautioned that the projects could take years to complete, slowed down by the cost and public consultation required to build new high-voltage power lines.
Future demand for electricity will also come from transportation electrification, Benayoun added.
(Reporting by Benjamin MalletWriting by Makini Brice and Dominique PattonEditing by David Goodman and Sharon Singleton)
