EDP - Energias de Portugal (formerly Electricidade de Portugal) is a Portuguese electric utilities company, headquartered in Lisbon. It was founded in 1976 through the merger of 14 nationalised electricity companies.

History

EDP was founded as ''Electricidade de Portugal, E.P.'' by the Portuguese government though the Decreto-lei nº 502/76 published on June 30, 1976, merging 14 former energy companies that had been nationalised by 1975 in the aftermath of the regime change in 1974, of which the most significant had been the ''Companhias Reunidas de Gás e Eletricidade'' (CRGE). The Portuguese state privatised the company in several phases, from 1996 to 2011. In March 2007 the group made a US$3 billion takeover of

Horizon Wind Energy EDP Renewables North America (former names: Zilkha Renewable Energy and Horizon Wind Energy) and its subsidiaries develop, construct, own, and operate wind farms and solar parks throughout North America. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, with 58 w ...

, the Texan-based wind power producer. At the time, it was the largest renewable energy deal to date and made EDP the fourth largest wind power producer in the world. The firm's renewables operations (including Horizon) are now contained within its majority-owned

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a ...

EDP Renováveis, 25% of which was floated on the Lisbon Stock Exchange in 2008. The company was ranked at position 239 in the 2009 issue of the Forbes Global 2000. China Three Gorges Corporation, a SOE, won in December 2011 the bidding for the Portuguese government's 21.35% interest in the company. The transaction is expected to be concluded by April 2012. As of February 2014, just under 45% of the ownership of EDP was controlled by five institutional shareholders. Amongst the others were the Qatar Investment Authority and BlackRock. In late 2018 EDP's largest shareholder, China Three Gorges Corporation, proposed a hostile takeover of EDP. This was ultimately rejected at the shareholders meeting on April 24, 2019. In 2020, EDP agreed to buy Viesgo, more than doubling its presence in Spain’s electricity distribution market.

Operations

The Group became the first Iberian company to own significant generating and distribution assets in both sides of the border, with a controlling position in the Spanish company HC Energía, and it is also present in the electricity sectors of Latin America – with a major presence in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

, in the generation, distribution and trading businesses. The EDP Group's activities are centered on the generation and

distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics * Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a vari ...

of electric power, as well as the information technologies areas. In addition, the group's business includes complementary and related areas, such as water, gas, engineering, laboratory testing, vocational training and real estate management. It once had businesses in the

IT consulting In management, information technology consulting (also called IT consulting, computer consultancy, business and technology services, computing consultancy, technology consulting, and IT advisory) is a field of activity which focuses on advising o ...

( Edinfor) and telecommunications ( ONI) sectors, but these were sold, respectively, to

Logica Logica plc was a multinational IT and management consultancy company headquartered in London and later Reading, United Kingdom. Founded in 1969, the company had offices in London and in a number of major cities across England, Wales and Sc ...

and the

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a t ...

group The Riverside Company. In 2006 35% of the energy produced by EDP was from

renewable energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...

sources, and, as of the end of 2007, the company announced that 39% of its energy was already emissions-free and that it was aiming for a 75% renewable energy production by 2013. In November 2019 EDP announced that it had reached a 50/50 Joint Venture agreement with the French gas and power company Engie to merge their fixed and floating offshore wind power activities, primarily targeting markets in Europe, the United States and selected geographies in Asia.

Foundation

The EDP Foundation is a non-profit organization set up and financed by the company as a means to foster the development of cultural, scientific and educational activities. It is headquartered at ''Central Tejo'', a former CRGE-owned 50 MW coal-powered

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae excl ...

at the Lisbon riverfront, decommissioned in the 1960s. Since 1990 it houses the

Electricity Museum Tejo Power Station (the old Electricity Museum, in Portuguese Museu da Electricidade) is a cultural centre that presents the evolution of energy with a Museum of Science and Industrial Archaeology concept, where themed and experimental exhib ...

, recently incorporated in the broader MAAT –

Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology The Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology ( pt, Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia) (MAAT) is a museum in Lisbon, Portugal. The Museum MAAT is a cultural project for the city Lisbon that is focused on three areas - Art, Architecture ...

, which is the main focal point of the foundation's activities. Image:Museu da electricidade.jpg, Tejo Power Station seen from the Tagus River (Rio Tejo) in 2009, before the construction of the

MAAT Maat or Maʽat ( Egyptian: mꜣꜥt /ˈmuʀʕat/, Coptic: ⲙⲉⲓ) refers to the ancient Egyptian concepts of truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice. Ma'at was also the goddess who personified these concepts, and r ...

Carbon intensity

References

External links