The reactor finally commissioned? EDF plans that the Flamanville EPR will inject electricity into the national network for the first time “in the summer of 2024”, twelve years behind the schedule planned for this nuclear reactor, according to a press release on Wednesday. “The connection to the national electricity network of the production unit is planned for summer 2024,” says EDF.
In December, the operator was counting on a connection "mid-2024", until the announcement on Tuesday by the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN, nuclear watchdog) according to which fuel loading was postponed to mid-April until better. “The Flamanville 3 EPR is technically ready to begin its commissioning,” underlines EDF in its press release.
ASN has decided to launch a public consultation “from March 27 to April 17, 2024 on its draft decision authorizing the commissioning of the Flamanville 3 EPR reactor”, recalls the energy company in its press release. The announcement from ASN, which will issue its commissioning notice at the end of this consultation, had raised fears of a further significant delay for this Normandy reactor river project, marked by numerous cost and schedule slippages since the launch of its construction 17 years ago.
Initial budget multiplied by 4
“This new stage of the procedure now makes it possible to envisage the first loading of nuclear fuel into the reactor within a few weeks,” continues EDF. The start-up operations can then continue until the temperature and pressure of the boiler rise, then the reactor increases in power. “At 25% power, the production unit will be connected to the national electricity network,” explained EDF in December 2022.
If the start-up is confirmed in the summer of 2024, it will therefore take place twelve years late on the planned schedule, for a total bill now estimated at 13.2 billion euros, according to EDF, or four times the initial budget of 3 .3 billion euros.
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Driven by a renewed interest in the atom, EDF intends to deploy 3rd generation reactors (EPR) in France and Europe on an “industrial” scale, with a now objective of “two per year”, compared to one or two per decade currently. The challenge is ambitious given the repeated cost and delay slippages, embodied by the Flamanville EPR.
The industrial challenge is colossal for the group, weighed down by an abysmal debt - 54.4 billion euros - and criticized for the setbacks of its EPR projects. Especially since EDF must also respond to the relaunch of a nuclear program in France of up to 18 EPR2 reactors - an improved version of the EPR - and carry out its two English programs, Hinkley Point, whose delay could wait six years, and Sizewell.