EdF intends to up domestic power market share to 15%

French utility Electricite de France (EdF), currently holding 9% of the domestic power generation sector, will seek to boost its market share, EdF's head said on Thursday. "We have already invested some euro 320 million to secure our current generation assets, and our ambition is to increase this share to some 15%," Francois Roussely said at a meeting with French business representatives in Warsaw. The company also intends to capture a stake in Poland's lucrative power distribution sector ahead of the market's full liberalization in 2005. EdF already owns stakes in three domestic combined-heat-and-power plants and is completing a deal to purchase 35% of Rybnik, the country's sixth-largest power plant in terms of capacity. It is also one of 10 heavyweight bidders for Poland's largest domestic power distribution group, the so-called G-8 group, which delivers some 16% of all electricity supplies, with annual output exceeding 16 terawatt hours. (Puls Biznesu, p.4, Reuters) M.K.