EDF loses 200,000 customers as operating profit drops

EDF Energy has posted a £172 million loss to its operating profit for the year ending 2018 as well as a loss of 200,000 customers.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was reduced by 16.5 per cent to £691 million.

EDF says the drop in earnings last year was the result of “lower generation output and lower realised prices”.

The big six supplier said it has not received £69 million-worth of capacity payments for October to December following the suspension of the capacity market in November last year.

The financial results showed that with three million residential electricity accounts and 1.9 million gas accounts at the end of 2018 there has been a reduction of 200,000 customers since the start of the year.

With regards to the smart meter rollout the company says it installed 515,000 devices in 2018 and more than one million since the programme started.

The supplier also issued an update on its three nuclear projects being developed alongside China General Nuclear Corporation (CGN).

It said construction of Hinkley Point C in Somerset is “on track” and achieved all key milestones last year.

Other nuclear projects are being developed at Sizewell in Suffolk and Bradwell in Essex.

The company added it produced less terawatt hours via its nuclear fleet in 2018. Last year saw 59.1TWh generated, 4.8TWh less than the previous year.

EDF says the reduction in output is largely due to the extended outages at Hunterston B for graphite inspections and safety case work, the extended outages at Dungeness B and other statutory outages.

EDF’s renewables business “continues to develop significant new projects” and has more than 1.5GW of renewables capacity currently in planning or development.

Earlier this week EDF Energy announced it will increase its standard variable tariff by 10 per cent from 1 April to the new level of the price cap.

Eon and Npower have also said they will increase their prices.