VSAt EDF, as with all supporters of nuclear energy, we can choose our information this Wednesday January 24 morning, between that which boosts morale and that which weighs it down a little more.
On the other hand, the International Energy Agency (IEA) is very optimistic about the deployment of nuclear electricity in the world. It now plans an increase in capacity of 70 gigawatts by 2025, an increase of 3% in 2024 and 2025, then 1.5% in 2026. Three countries are participating in this improvement: China, India , but also France, whose installations are finally operating at full capacity, after a particularly difficult year 2023. Added to the strong development of renewable energies, which should overtake coal within a year in electron production, the share of fossil fuels should fall in 2026, to 54% of electricity produced in the world. The horizon is therefore brightening for nuclear power.
On the other hand, much less encouraging information. EDF announced, Tuesday January 23, problems at his cursed British shipyard at Hinkley Point. For the fifth time, the electrician announces further delays and, as a result, a further increase in the bill. The first of the two reactors, of the EPR type, of the plant should finally come into operation only in 2029 at the earliest, and, more likely, in 2030, or even 2031. A delay caused by electromechanical assembly work taking longer than foreseen. If the forecasts are still of any use.
Colossal debt
The final bill for this pharaonic project should therefore amount to 34 billion pounds sterling in 2015 value, or, according to the Financial Times, almost 46 billion pounds sterling (more than 53 billion euros). This is approximately the amount announced by EDF to produce the six French reactors by 2035. The experience curve will have to be spectacular for the French electrician to be able to produce three times as much of the same product in two batches. less time for the same price. The nuclear nightmare therefore continues.
This announcement is good neither for EDF, nor for the State, nor for the consumer. The latter, who will taste the 10% increase in his bill within a few weeks, will still have to pay for EDF’s apprenticeship in EPR technology for a long time to come. The nuclear reference price, negotiated by the electrician with its supervisory authority, in November 2023, is considered very advantageous by many observers, since it goes beyond the cost of the historic fleet and is intended to finance future investments . And also to absorb the colossal debt of the operator, who, for the moment, is the only one to bear the extravagant additional costs of the British site, the Chinese partner having withdrawn from the financing.
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