Umpteenth blow, umpteenth delay. While trying to revive its nuclear fleet, whose production is at its lowest, EDF announced on Friday December 16 that it was still postponing the commissioning of its EPR nuclear reactor in Flamanville (Manche), due to weld repairs more difficult than expected. Initially announced for the end of 2023, it should now only be effective in the first quarter of 2024.
These additional six months, which bring the delay of the project to twelve years, will cost the operator 500 million euros more, increasing its total bill from 12.7 billion to 13.2 billion euros, i.e. four times the initial budget of 3.3 billion euros. According to Alain Morvan, the director of the Flamanville 3 project, the works which are at the origin of these new delays and additional costs represent approximately 150 complex heat treatment operations of certain welds, on pipe connections with valves not supporting the same heating temperatures.
These repairs were interrupted in the summer and should resume in early 2023, with fuel loading now announced for the first quarter of 2024. The reactor will send its first electrons when it has reached nearly 25% of its power, “about three months later”, so by mid-2024. In addition to these technical hazards, Mr. Morvan confirmed that EDF would comply with the request of the Nuclear Safety Authority to replace, at the end of 2024, the cover of the EPR vessel, the manufacture of which has not been conform to expectations. An approach which will involve an early shutdown of the reactor in relation to the scheduled date of the first replacement of its fuel.
Already powered up
Without being able to count on the Flamanville EPR in 2023 as agreed, France could therefore be exposed to greater tensions on its electricity supply during the winter of 2023-2024. And this, while more and more voices are being raised to warn of the increased risk of electricity shortages at this time, Europe should no longer be able to count on Russian gas to fill its stocks.
In the meantime, the current winter is already under tension, with only 41 reactors in operation out of the 56 in the French nuclear fleet. Especially since, of these 15 shutdown reactors, two should not restart on time, according to EDF. The Flamanville reactor 1, which was to be operational on December 25, will not be until February 19, 2023. As for the Penly reactor 1, in Seine-Maritime, which is suffering from a “new indication of stress corrosion”it should not work again before March 20, 2023. Its resumption was previously scheduled for January 23.
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