The future commissioning of the new generation EPR reactor at Flamanville constitutes a key step for the gradual launch of electricity production planned for the summer.
:quality(50)/2023/07/06/64a68815cd1a7_placeholder-36b69ec8.png)
Published
Update
Reading time: 1 min
:quality(50)/2024/05/07/000-34qa8d6-663a472e0a5ec343546215.jpg)
This green light gives a boost to a project which has accumulated no less than twelve years of delay. The Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) “has just adopted the authorization to commission the Flamanville EPR”, declared to AFP on Tuesday May 7, the deputy director general of the French nuclear watchdog, Julien Collet. Issued at the end of its instruction, “this authorization will allow EDF to begin loading fuel into the reactor core and then begin the testing phase which will continue” in the coming months, he added, echoing an ASN press release.
These tests will notably make it possible to “check the correct behavior of the reactor core” And “the proper functioning of the reactor safety devices”according to Julien Collet.
A key step towards producing electricity in the coming months
The future commissioning of the new generation EPR reactor at Flamanville constitutes a key step for the gradual launch of electricity production, planned for the summer. EDF can now start loading at any time, “one by one”uranium assemblies in the reactor, an essential milestone before the progressive launch.
Connection to the electrical network, called “coupling”, however, will only take place in a few months, once the reactor has reached 25% of its power, after a gradual increase in stages, which will require new opinions from the ASN. It’s only by “end of the year” that the reactor should operate and deliver its electrons at 100% of its power, according to EDF.
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 seventeen-year project, punctuated by multiple problems and colossal budgetary slippages: at this time, the total bill is estimated by EDF at 13.2 billion euros, four times the initial estimate of 3.3 billion.