Flamanville EPR: 12 years late, we finally know exactly when the nuclear reactor will be connected to the electricity grid

On December 18, 2024, EDF announced the date for connecting the Flamanville EPR to the grid. After 12 years of delay and a total cost of 13 billion euros, it will finally be possible to benefit from the nuclear energy produced on this gigantic site in Normandy.

Eureka! After years of spending, controversy, research and twists and turns, the nuclear reactor will supply the grid. This Wednesday, EDF announced that the connection would be made on Friday, December 20.

Test phase

Coupling to the national grid “will be marked by different power levels, until the summer of 2025, which will conclude the test phase” revealed the supplier to our colleagues at France Info. The EPR will initially operate at a quarter of its power.

Initially, this reactor was to be connected in 2012, twelve years ago. But this type of nuclear production device, particularly advanced and expensive, has put a spanner in the works of those responsible for the project.

13 billion euros

Originally, this new generation reactor was supposed to cost 3.3 billion euros. A sum multiplied by four over the past twelve years. This is due in particular to repeated incidents. The last one was in May, when the EPR automatically shut down after the start of the nuclear reaction.

If he is the 57th in the French fleet, the Flamanville EPR is the fourth of its type in the world to see the light of day since the start of the “EPR project” Franco-German in 1989, notes Le Monde. One is in Finland, and two are in China.

In Finland too, the construction site had fallen behind schedule: from four years it had gone to sixteen years of construction. And its initial cost of three billion euros had climbed to eleven.

This EPR (European Pressurized Reactor), operates on pressurized water, a hyper-efficient production type, optimized and reputed to be safer. Otherwise, it works like all nuclear fission reactors: the fission of atoms (this is the nuclear reaction) produces heat and transforms water into steam, creating pressure and energy. According to EDF, an EPR produces 22% more energy than a conventional reactor.