EDP - Energias de Portugal (formerly Electricidade de Portugal) is a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Port ...

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 The Government of Portugal is one of the four sovereignty bodies of the Portuguese Republic, together with the President of the Republic, the Assembly of the Republic and the courts. It is both the body of sovereignty that conducts the general p ...

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, 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 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 The ''Forbes'' Global 2000 is an annual ranking of the top 2000 public companies in the world, published by ''Forbes'' magazine. "The Global 2000" annual ranking is assembled by ''Forbes'' using a weighted assessment of four metrics: sales, profi ...

China Three Gorges Corporation The China Three Gorges Corporation (CTG; ) is a Chinese state-owned power company, established on 27 September 1993. The company was responsible for the construction of the Three Gorges Dam-project, the world's largest hydroelectric power plant, th ...

, a

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, 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 The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA; ar, جهاز قطر للإستثمار) is Qatar's sovereign wealth fund. The QIA was founded by the State of Qatar in 2005 to strengthen the country's economy by diversifying into new asset classes. In 2021 ...

and

BlackRock BlackRock, Inc. is an American multi-national investment company based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, with tri ...

. In late 2018 EDP's largest shareholder,

, proposed a

hostile takeover In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to ...

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

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company HC Energía, and it is also present in the electricity sectors of Latin America – with a major presence in the

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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

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

generation A generation refers to all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively. It can also be described as, "the average period, generally considered to be about 20–⁠30 years, during which children are born and gro ...

and

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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 or ...

( Edinfor) and telecommunications (

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) 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 Scot ...

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 typ ...

group The Riverside Company. In 2006 35% of the energy produced by EDP was from 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 Engie SA is a French multinational utility company, headquartered in La Défense, Courbevoie, which operates in the fields of energy transition, electricity generation and distribution, natural gas, nuclear, renewable energy and petroleum ...

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 Photosynthesis, photosynthetic eukaryotes of the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all curr ...

at the Lisbon riverfront, decommissioned in the 1960s. Since 1990 it houses the Electricity Museum, recently incorporated in the broader MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, 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 re ...

Carbon intensity

References

External links