The Emile Huchet coal-fired power plant in Carling / Saint-Avold, in the Moselle department, on February 14, 2022 (AFP/Archives/JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN)
Will close? Will not close? Thursday was to be the last day of operation of the coal-fired power plant in Saint-Avold (Moselle), where the emotion was palpable in the control room, but the possibility of an extension of activity next winter leaves employees in an uncomfortable uncertainty.
“It’s a special day, we had a close relationship with our working tool,” says Thomas About, 31, who started working in 2009 at the Saint-Avold plant.
It ran at full speed this winter and its high chimneys were to go out definitively on Thursday.
But the fate of the Emile Huchet plant is still pending, the government not having ruled out its restart next winter, given the setbacks encountered by EDF’s nuclear fleet and the consequences of the conflict in Ukraine.
Faced with this uncertainty, which weighs on the morale of some, the employees are busy gently stopping this heavy machinery, inaugurated in 1981 by a newly elected François Mitterrand, taking the “greatest care” there.
All handle the equipment “with the greatest possible care to make the tool available” in the event of a restart, underlines Thomas About.
Sylvain Krebs, 46 years old and 22 years old spent at the Emile Huchet power station, looks one last time at the screens whose lights, all green, indicate that the installations are stopped.
The coal, which he was in charge of on the site, he “mourned”, but kept in memory a “small jar” of this “black gold” which kept Lorraine alive for nearly two centuries.
– “Quick decision” –
The Emile Huchet coal-fired power plant in Carling / Saint-Avold, in the Moselle department, on February 14, 2022 (AFP/Archives/JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN)
And if he has to come back next year, he is ready, like many of his colleagues. But he is under no illusions: for him, “we are prolonging something which is in any case destined to stop”.
“We will manage to find volunteers to return to service; here in Moselle, we are hard workers!”, Exclaims Michael Oeblinger, 60, 40 of whom spent at the central, handling manager and CFE-CGC union representative. After having “closed the doors at 10:00 p.m.” Thursday evening, he will be retired, like nearly half of the 87 employees of Emile Huchet.
However, everyone is waiting for “the politicians to come out of the woodwork” and decide on the future of the plant.
“We need a quick decision, we can’t stay too long in uncertainty” explains Philippe Lenglart, the site director. Because to restart next fall, we should quickly recommend coal. However, the current lead times are “three to four months”, he recalls.
He indicates that in the event of a restart, it will also be necessary to carry out “necessary maintenance work” to “restore” certain equipment. And he will have to start discussions with his employees to find out who will want to come back or not.
– “With respect for the teams” –
Because to run the plant, he will need about 70 people next winter: these are jobs “for which long training is necessary”. It is therefore “excluded from recruiting people who do not know the job”, he insists.
The Emile Huchet coal-fired power plant in Carling / Saint-Avold, in the Moselle department, on February 14, 2022 (AFP / JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN)
The very polluting plant had the right to operate 1,000 hours for the period from January to February, then 600 hours for the rest of 2022.
To allow the restart of Saint-Avold, the government would “again temporarily relax the constraint on the number of hours of operation of this plant”, “in order to secure the electricity supply during the next fall and winter. “, had indicated the ministry of the ecological Transition at the beginning of the week.
But “until we are certain, we do not want to rekindle hope” among the employees, notes Camille Jaffrelo, spokesperson for the GazelEnergie group, owner of the plant. For her, if Emile Huchet restarts, it must in priority “be done with respect for the teams”.
According to the Ministry of Ecological Transition, the possible operation of the plant next winter, “linked to an exceptional context, would not call into question the overall trajectory of France’s coal exit”.
There is only one other coal-fired power plant still open in France, in Cordemais, in Loire-Atlantique.
Emmanuel Macron had promised to close these last coal-fired power stations by 2022, which can easily be mobilized to produce electricity when needed, but also emit a lot of CO2.
© 2022 AFP
Did you like this article ? Share it with your friends with the buttons below.
