This photo shows part of the Emile-Huchet coal-fired power plant, in Saint-Avold, Moselle, on November 29, 2022 (AFP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen)
The high chimney spits its thick smoke again and an incessant ballet of trucks comes to unload a dark cargo, amid the noise of the turbines: with the cold setting in, the coal-fired power station of Saint-Avold, one of the last in France , resumed service on Monday.
A major CO2 emitter, this plant was to close its doors definitively at the end of March. But the government decided otherwise this summer to secure the country’s electricity supply, given the conflict in Ukraine and the setbacks encountered by EDF’s nuclear fleet.
Since 9 a.m. Monday morning, the Emile-Huchet power station has been sending electricity back to the network. The employees are “proud” to be “at the rendezvous”, welcomes Thomas About, 32-year-old shift manager, present during the closure at the end of March of this 41-year-old section.
This restart could have happened earlier, at the beginning of October, but the temperatures remained mild. “We were waiting for the electrical system to need us,” explains Camille Jaffrelo, spokesperson for GazelEnergie, the company that owns the installation.
A restart fruit of a “great collective success” according to Mr. About. Because he and his fellow coal workers affirm it: they have “the collective interest pegged to the body”.
– “Mixed” feeling –
Total cost of the operation for GazelEnergie: 500 million euros, including 400 million “for coal and its logistics”, details Camille Jaffrelo. Before the restart, the company also carried out major renovation work on the facilities.
An excavator carries coal to the Saint-Avold power plant, in Moselle, on November 29, 2022 (AFP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen)
The purchasing power law voted in early August included a measure allowing GazelEnergie to rehire employees this winter. More than half were retiring and the youngest had to be reclassified within the company’s new projects.
A total of 70 of them responded. If the generous bonus of 5,800 euros gross per month offered to employees for this winter weighed in the balance, “it’s not just that”: “people love their work” and “want to serve something” , explains the manager of the coal fleet, Sylvain Krebs, 47 years old, including 23 years in the power plant.
Recalling young retirees has also been an “obligation” for the company, which needs their skills: coal, “it’s heavy industry, it’s not by snapping your fingers that you’re trained” , underlines Mr. Krebs.
A technician monitors data in the engine room of the coal-fired power plant in Saint-Avold, Moselle, on November 29, 2022 (AFP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen)
Faced with the 420,000 tonnes of coal stored in the open air and for which he is responsible, he nevertheless has a “mixed” feeling about this recovery, because he is convinced that we must “turn the page” on this very polluting resource, which kept Lorraine alive for almost two centuries.
For this winter, the plant will burn between 500,000 and 600,000 tonnes, at a rate of 5,000 to 6,000 tonnes per day.
The plant has the right to operate 2,500 hours until March 2023 to “secure the electrical system this winter”, specifies Camille Jaffrelo. When running at full capacity, Emile-Huchet can produce up to 600 megawatt-hours and is able to supply a third of the homes in the Grand Est region.
– “Play yo-yo” –
There is only one other coal-fired power station still open in France, at Cordemais, in Loire-Atlantique. In France more than 67% of the electricity produced is of nuclear origin, the share of fossil fuels being in 2020 7.5%, including 6.9% gas and only 0.3% coal.
As for a possible recovery for winter 2023-2024, GazelEnergie calls on the government to take a decision as soon as possible.
A truck comes to unload its cargo at the coal-fired power plant in Saint-Avold, in Moselle, on November 29, 2022 (AFP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen)
“Out of the question for us to send our employees home without visibility in April,” insists Ms. Jaffrelo. “It is not humanly possible, we cannot play yoyo with 150 people”, she adds, asking the government to decide “before April so that this plant can operate” possibly next year.
Once definitively closed, the Emile-Huchet power plant will be dismantled to make way for new projects, in particular a biomass boiler which will supply heat to the industrialists of the neighboring Carling chemical platform, which GazelEnergie hopes to put into service at the end of 2024.
© 2022 AFP
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