More than ten years late and a cost now estimated at 12.7 billion euros once morest 3.3 billion expected before the start of the work … The EPR of Flamanville, in the Channel, has not finished with the setbacks . EDF has just announced a new delay by planning to load fuel for this new generation nuclear power plant in the second quarter of 2023 once morest the end of 2022 previously. The electrician puts forward several reasons.
According to EDF, the project schedule takes into account the state of progress of operations and preparation for start-up “in an industrial context made more difficult by the pandemic” even if “more than 55,000 documentary checks and verifications on the installations , concerning more than 7000 pieces of equipment “important for safety” “, has been carried out, explains the company.
In addition, the group indicated that the inspections carried out on the fuel assemblies of the No.1 reactor in Taishan, China, following the technical hazard encountered during its second operating cycle, showed a phenomenon of mechanical wear of some assembly components. For EDF, even if verifications are necessary, such a phenomenon has already been encountered on several reactors in the French nuclear fleet and does not “call into question the EPR model”.
Before being able to load the fuel from Flamanville, the group will notably have to proceed to the end of the repairing of defective welds, carry out a new test campaign, take into account the difficulties encountered at Taishan and obtain administrative authorizations once it is completed. will have completed “the investigation of the last technical subjects” in connection with the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN).
A project now estimated at 12.7 billion euros
This new delay will increase the bill for this project. Estimated at three billion euros when the project was announced in 2004 for entry into service in 2012, the cost of the project was once once more revised upwards, from 12.4 billion euros to 12, 7 billions. This bad publicity of the EPR comes as Emmanuel Macron announced at the beginning of November the relaunch of the construction of reactors in France, without however specifying the number or the type of units envisaged, nor their financing.
EDF proposed in this context a “new model” EPR presented as simpler and cheaper to build than that of Flamanville, with six reactors estimated at some 50 billion euros. At the beginning of January, the CEO of the group, Jean-Bernard Lévy even considered that it was “urgent” for the government to move “from a phase of declaration of principle to a phase of launching concrete actions” on the subject.
