The Electricité de France group (EDF) must once once more “Adjust the schedule”. To put it bluntly, the construction of the third-generation EPR nuclear reactor in Flamanville (Manche) will experience further delay and additional costs. Prior to any operating test, the fuel loading date in the vessel of the future reactor is “postponed from the end of 2022 to the second quarter of 2023”, announced the group in a press release, Wednesday, January 12 in the morning.
“In an industrial context made more difficult by the pandemic” of Covid-19, this bad news further increases the cost of construction, which goes from 12.4 billion to 12.7 billion euros, announces the company. In July 2020, the Court of Auditors even considered that the total cost of the site would amount to more than 19 billion euros, taking into account other expenses intervening before any industrial commissioning, in particular those related to parts. alternative or administrative or fiscal procedures. The advisers of the Court of Auditors already pointed to a “An operational failure, cost drifts and considerable delays”.
Site started in 2007
The announcement of a new delay further complicates the situation of EDF, of which the State is still the majority shareholder. Heavily indebted, the group began work on the EPR (acronym for “European pressurized reactor”) in 2007, and initially aimed for commissioning… for 2012, with much lower construction cost estimates. high (around 3 billion euros).
In 2019, at the request of the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, the CEO of EDF, Jean-Bernard Lévy, commissioned a report on the setbacks accumulated for several years. This Folz report (named following the former CEO of the automotive group PSA) attributed the years of delay in part to “A generalized loss of skills”. In fact, the Flamanville site was preceded by a long period without any plans for new reactors.
On the other hand, the first two EPRs to have entered into operation in the world, in 2018 and 2019, are in China, in Taishan. An incident led to the arrest, in July 2021, of one of them. In question, “A phenomenon of mechanical wear of certain assembly components”, according to EDF, which ensures that this file “Does not call into question the EPR model”.
The 56 reactors of the current French nuclear fleet, the main source of electricity in the country, belong to the category of pressurized water reactors known as second generation. The Flamanville power station has two of this category, commissioned in the mid-1980s. The most recent being those in Civaux (Vienne), which began operating at the end of the 1990s.
On November 9, 2021, despite the problems noted on the “Flamanville 3” site, Emmanuel Macron announced his intention to “Relaunch the construction of nuclear reactors in our country”. A pledge of“Energy independence of France”, according to the President of the Republic.