France on the verge of connecting the Flamanville EPR reactor to the network

Friday December 20, 2024, D-day for the Flamanville EPR (Manche): after 17 years of work, including 12 years late, the new generation nuclear reactor should finally be connected to the network and contribute to France’s electricity production .

Barring last minute hazards, the first coupling to the EPR reactor network should therefore take place on the last day of autumn, after having been promised “before the end of summer”Then “before the end of autumn”.

In a message addressed to the wholesale energy market, EDF reported on Thursday evening that planned maintenance of the reactor would be carried out until Friday 8:00 p.m., implying coupling at best at the end of the day.

How the reactor works “will be marked by different power levels, until summer 2025, which will conclude the testing phase”according to EDF.

The reactor must then operate “at 100% power until the first scheduled shutdown for maintenance and refueling called Complete Visit 1”specified EDF, without giving a precise date.

It is therefore not quite the end, but at the very least an outcome for a project which is 12 years behind the initial schedule due to numerous technical setbacks. These caused the deadlines and the bill to explode, now estimated at 13.2 billion euros by EDF, or four times the initial estimate of 3.3 billion.

In 2020, the Court of Auditors estimated it at 19 billion, including “additional financing costs”.

To mark the event, EDF has planned a press conference in the afternoon in Paris.

Paradoxically, the arrival on the network of this 1,600 MW reactor, the most powerful in the French fleet, comes at a time when the country’s electricity consumption is down compared to the years before Covid-19, of the order by 6%.

“Electricity is available, let’s use it”launched as a cry from the heart the CEO of EDF, Luc Rémont last week, against a backdrop of crisis in the industry, particularly the automobile industry, and a halt to the electrification of uses.

First new reactor since 1999

It has been a quarter of a century since France, the country with the most nuclear power plants per capita, had started a new reactor, since 1999 with nuclear reactor 2 at Civaux, in Vienne.

In addition to the complexity of the project, the long pause in the construction of new reactors in France is singled out by experts, for whom it has caused a loss of skills in the sector, partly explaining the setbacks encountered on this colossal project.

And what’s next?

Emmanuel Macron has decided to relaunch civil nuclear power in France, by ordering six EPR2 reactors (and eight additional optional ones) from the energy company, but the budgetary framework is long overdue for this project, which is all the more pharaonic since EDF, held in 100% by the State, is heavily in debt.

The lack of political visibility does not help matters, according to the newspaper Les Echos, which affirms that, according to several sources, the board of directors of the energy company voted on Wednesday, in the 2025 budget, a reduction in the The envelope dedicated to preparatory work for future EPR2, from 2 billion euros to a range of 1.1 to 1.3 billion euros.

Information confirmed to AFP by an internal source at EDF, but which management refutes.

She affirms that the amount of investments is at this stage “not decided” and that he “will be reviewed later”once all the terms of the program have been defined.

Initiated on September 3, the start-up of the reactor marked the beginning of its gradual increase in power which will allow it to be connected to the electricity network.

The power level reached at the time of coupling is not yet known, according to EDF.

The EPR, a new generation pressurized water reactor, is the 4th of this type installed in the world (two in China, one in Finland, and one under construction in the United Kingdom), and the 57th in the French nuclear fleet. Ultimately, it should supply around two million homes with electricity.