You do not dream ! Twelve years after the planned date, electricity production should be gradually launched this summer. The Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) gave the green light this Tuesday to the future commissioning of the Flamanville EPR, in Manche. This decision will allow EDF to begin loading nuclear fuel into the reactor, a key step for start-up.
A test phase will continue and should make it possible in particular to “verify the proper behavior of the reactor core” and “the proper functioning of the reactor safety devices,” Julien Collet, deputy general director, explained to AFP. of the nuclear safety policeman in France.
Optimal operation at the end of the year
EDF can now begin loading the uranium assemblies into the reactor “one by one” at any time. Connection to the electricity network (the “coupling”) will only take place in a few months, once the reactor has reached 25% of its power, after a gradual increase in stages.
It is only at the “end of the year” that the reactor should operate and deliver its electrons at 100% of its power, according to EDF which will still have to seek the opinion of the ASN three times: “before starting the nuclear reaction”, “at the power level of 25% then at the power level of 80%”, indicated Julien Collet.
At a time when the government wants to build up to 14 reactors in France, the loading of fuel is a decisive step for EDF and the entire sector, which intend to turn the page on a difficult 17-year project, punctuated by multiple problems and colossal budgetary slippages. The total bill is now estimated at 13.2 billion euros, according to EDF, or four times the initial estimate of 3.3 billion.
Multiple setbacks
Launched in 1992 as the flagship of nuclear technology, with an initial Franco-German collaboration, the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) technology was designed to revive the atom in Europe, after the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, by offering increased safety and power.
But this promise has encountered numerous setbacks. Like the first EPR project, launched in Olkiluoto (Finland) in 2005, that of Flamanville started in 2007 experienced multiple setbacks: cracks in the concrete of the slab, anomalies in the steel of the tank, defects Welding…