the Flamanville EPR is another six months late and 500 million euros in additional costs, EDF announced

The European pressurized reactor (EPR) in Flamanville, Normandy taken on June 14, 2022. SAMEER AL-DOUMY / AFP

The delay is now twelve years. EDF announced, Friday, December 16, six months of additional delay for the commissioning of its EPR nuclear reactor in Flamanville (Manche), which must now start by mid-2024 instead of the end of 2023.

These six additional months result in a new additional cost of 500 million euros, increasing the total cost of the project, under construction since 2007, from 12.7 to 13.2 billion euros.

The new delay is due to the necessary revision of treatment procedures for some 150 welds « complexes »within the main secondary circuit of the reactor, explained to the press the director of the Flamanville 3 project, Alain Morvan.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers “EDF or the fiasco of a variable-geometry energy policy”

The problem appeared this summer, when it was necessary to carry out the heat treatment of “relaxation” welds: the process used revealed a “behavioral non-compliance” sensitive materials nearby, affected by excessively high temperatures. “We had valve temperature behavior that did not conform to what we expected”explained Mr. Morvan.

“We stopped the heat treatment last summer and resumed studies to define a method, and carried out tests to guarantee the correct level of performance of these heat treatments”he specified. “These files have been presented to Bureau Veritas, which is analyzing them, and by the end of the year we will have authorization to resume so-called “complex” heat treatments”said the director of the project.

Project schedule disrupted

These operations should therefore be able to resume at the start of 2023, but the entire project schedule is upset: fuel loading is now announced for the first quarter of 2024. Then, the reactor will send its first electrons to the network when it has reached nearly 25% of its power, “regarding three months later”so by mid-2024, rather than the end of 2023 as previously planned.

The 500 million euros in additional costs are mainly related to maintaining staff and companies on site, said the EDF manager.

Read also The multiple skids of the Flamanville EPR in graphics

The World with AFP