Flamanville EPR: Connection of France's most powerful reactor to the network expected overnight, 12 years late

With a 12-year delay, the new-generation nuclear reactor should be connected to the grid on the night of Friday, December 20, and contribute to France's electricity production, with a tight schedule.

Initially scheduled for 10 a.m., postponed once to 8 p.m., EDF finally announced a maintenance operation on the reactor that should end at 11 p.m., involving a coupling just before the end-of-autumn threshold that EDF had committed to in September.

“Since yesterday and last night in particular, certain operations have led to regaining a little margin and to shifting in the day”, but “today, this time is the most likely”, said Régis Clément, deputy director of the Nuclear Production division at EDF during a press briefing this Friday afternoon, December 20. He did not completely rule out a coupling a little later in the night.

The operation must be done at very low load, having reached a level “of approximately 20%” of its power, he specified. This will make it possible to verify that “everything is fine” before continuing “additional tests”. “Between 10 and 15 shutdowns and restarts are scheduled” then to test the reactor, which will reach 100% power “in the summer of 2025”, during its first 18-month industrial activity cycle, he said. “Then, probably in the spring of 2026, there will be a first scheduled shutdown for maintenance and reloading of fuel called Visite Complet 1”, according to EDF

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A construction site 12 years behind schedule

This Friday, December 20, marks the culmination of this project, which is 12 years behind schedule due to numerous technical setbacks. These have caused the deadlines and the bill to explode, now estimated at 13.2 billion euros by EDF, four times the initial estimate of 3.3 billion.

In 2020, the Court of Auditors had estimated it at 19 billion, including the “additional financing costs”. 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, by around 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 in the automobile industry, and a halt in the electrification of uses.

First opening of a reactor since 1999

It had been a quarter of a century since France, the country with the most nuclear power plants per capita, had not started up a new reactor, since 1999 with the nuclear reactor 2 of Civaux, in Vienne. In addition to the complexity of the project, the long pause in the construction of new reactors in France is pointed out by experts, for whom it has led to a loss of skills in the sector, partly explaining the setbacks encountered on this colossal project.

Emmanuel Macron has decided to relaunch civil nuclear power in France, by ordering six EPR2 reactors (and eight additional ones as an option) from the energy company, but the budgetary framework is still awaited for this project, which is all the more colossal since EDF, 100% owned by the State, is heavily in debt.

A 4th EPR in the world

The lack of political visibility does not help matters, according to the newspaper Les Échos. He claims that, according to several sources, the energy company's board of directors voted on Wednesday, in the 2025 budget, to reduce the envelope dedicated to the preparatory work of the future EPR2, from 2 billion euros to a range of 1.1 to 1.3 billion euros.

Information that was confirmed to AFP by an internal source at EDF, but that management refutes. The company claims that the amount of investments is at this stage “not decided” and that it “will be examined later”, once all the terms of the program have been defined. The reactor's start-up, initiated on September 3, marked the beginning of its ramp-up, which will allow it to be connected to the electricity grid.

The EPR, a new-generation pressurized water reactor, is the 4th of its 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 electricity to around two million homes.