Total has become a major power supplier in France and Belgium with the acquisition of Direct Energie, paying €1.4 billion.
Patrick Pouyanné, chair and chief executive of Total, said “Total is actively pursuing its development in electricity and gas generation and distribution in France and Belgium. This friendly takeover is part of the group’s strategy to expand along the entire gas-electricity value chain and to develop low-carbon energies, in line with our ambition to become the responsible energy major”.
Total has 1.5 million customers and Direct Energie has 2.6 million. Total said it was aiming to have six million customers in France and more than one million customers in Belgium by 2022.
The transaction includes Direct Energie’s power generation capacity of 800MW of gas-fired power plant and 550MW of renewables, and its project pipeline (a 400MW gas-fired power plant under construction and a 2 GW pipeline of renewable electricity projects in France), Total Eren in emerging countries and Sunpower in the USA. Total already has capacity of 900MW installed capacity and it is now targeting global capacity of at least 10GW of gas and renewables installed capacity within five years.
Total Gas & Power has around 60,000 domestic customers in the UK and nearly 17,000 business customers.
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