Initially scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday, postponed for the first time to 8 p.m., EDF finally reported a reactor maintenance operation scheduled to end at 11 p.m., involving coupling just before the end of autumn threshold on which was hired by EDF in September.
An invoice which amounts to four times the initial estimate of 3.3 billion
“Since yesterday and last night in particular, certain operations have led to taking back a little margin and shifting during the day”, but “today, it is this time which is the most probable”, indicated Friday Régis Clément, deputy director of the Nuclear Production division at EDF. He didn't completely rule out a coupling later in the night.
Friday marks a culmination for this 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”.
“Electricity is available, let’s use it.”
First new reactor since 1999
Paradoxically, the arrival on the network of this reactor of more than 1,600 MW, 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, order of 6%. “Electricity is available, let's use it,” said EDF CEO Luc Rémont like a heartfelt cry last week, against a backdrop of crisis in the industry, particularly the automobile industry, and the shutdown of electricity. electrification of uses.
It has been a quarter of a century since France, the country with the most nuclear power plants per capita, has 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.
What is the ramp-up phase?
“Between 10 and 15 shutdowns and restarts are scheduled” to test the reactor which will reach 100% power “in the summer of 2025”, during its first 18-month industrial activity cycle, indicated Régis Clément, deputy director. of the nuclear division at EDF. The first coupling of the reactor to the network, which was planned for the night from Friday to Saturday, was to be done while it is still at very low load, having reached a level of “around 20%” of its power, -he clarified. This allows you to check that “everything is fine” before carrying out “additional tests”. The operation consists of coupling “the nuclear part of the installation, that is to say the boiler, to the non-nuclear part, that is to say the turbine which drives the alternator” which allows the delivery of electricity.
During the test phase that will follow, some 200 procedures and 60,000 technical and operational criteria will be tested, he said, ensuring that all commissioning of new reactors went through these same mandatory stages.
