The company said the delay could range from one day to three weeks.
EDF said Friday that it had to postpone the restart of six nuclear reactors currently shut down for maintenance or repair. The delays range from one day to three weeks, notes the Bloomberg agency. In question, in particular, a strike action at the call of the CGT which slows down, even blocks, operations during maintenance or repair sites of reactors for several weeks. All this in a context of high tension on the electricity network as winter approaches.
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EDF is in fact currently carrying out a veritable “remontada” aimed at restoring nuclear power of the order of 50 gigawatts to the network by the end of November. Today, only 32 gigawatts are available on the grid. The CGT ensures for its part that the strike will not have “no impact on the supply of electricity to citizens this winter” and that the impact will be strictly financial for EDF. “A day late on a shutdown is usually worth 1 million euros in lost revenuesays the union. At the current price of electricity, it is 5 to 10 times higher.” Analysts are already counting on a loss of more than 10 billion for EDF in 2022 due to corrosion problems on a dozen reactors.
Nothing says that these stops will not have an impact on the passage of winter without cuts. Indeed, the disruptions closest to the restart dates are not the most impactful in terms of delay. Electricity markets are not surprised. “We observe zero reaction on the price of the megawatt hournotes Emeric de Vigan, vice-president in charge of electricity markets at Kpler. These delays were expected, and already taken into account in the prices.”
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