EDF postpones the restart of five reactors, against a backdrop of energy crisis and social movement

While France, like all of Europe, is experiencing an energy crisis and the strike movement affecting refineries has spread to certain nuclear power plants, EDF has postponed the restart of five reactors, learned Agence France-Presse (AFP ), Saturday, October 15, with the company.

Social movements can “have an impact on the schedule for the return to production of certain reactors”recognized, Wednesday, a spokesperson for the group to AFP. “For reactors in production, this can result in temporary power drops”she added.

The French electric giant thus updated, at the end of the week, the date of restart of several reactors, on its website. This concerns the Cattenom 1, Cruas 2 and 3, Saint-Alban 2 and Tricastin 3 reactors for delays that range from one day to nearly three weeks depending on the reactor.

Strike in six power plants

Friday, the company, in the process of being completely renationalized, counted social movements in six of the eighteen power stations of the country, where the strike was renewed for the weekend. This movement aims to put pressure on the wage negotiations of companies in the energy sector. At EDF, a first meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, the day of the interprofessional mobilization organized at the call of four trade unions.

The largest nuclear power plant in France, that of Gravelines (North), is particularly affected by the strike movement, as are those of Cruas (Ardèche), Belleville-sur-Loire (Cher), Bugey (Ain), Tricastin (Drôme) and Cattenom (Moselle). Against a backdrop of high inflation and driven by the social movement that spread to refineries last week, employees in the sector are demanding a 5% wage increase for 2022 and 2023.

If this social movement has no impact at this stage for the general public and weighs mainly on EDF’s finances, it could “impact the calendar” to make nuclear units available on the network, most of the power plants on strike being subject to maintenance operations, Claude Martin, of the National Federation of Mines and Industry, rightly argued on Friday to AFP ( FNME-CGT).

Emmanuel Macron has promised a handover “in the coming weeks” of ten reactors

“We are now at thirty reactors out of fifty-six in operation, we will increase in the coming weeks to around forty, the objective is to increase to forty-five in January”however, said President Emmanuel Macron during a television interview on France 2 on Wednesday. “This objective, everything indicates that we will keep it”he promised.

With the approach of winter, France is weakened due to nuclear electricity production at its lowest, linked to work or corrosion problems on part of its nuclear reactors, against a backdrop of the European energy crisis linked to the war in Ukraine. And it can hardly count on its hydraulic production, reduced due to the drought.

The manager of the Electricity Transmission Network (RTE) had judged in September the risk of tension on the electricity network this winter “increased” but “controllable thanks to strong mobilization” in favor of energy savings, while the government presented its sobriety incentive plan at the beginning of October.