by America Hernandez and Benjamin Mallet
PARIS, March 9 (Reuters) – EDF plans to unveil an updated strategy for the inspection and repair of its nuclear power plants internally on Friday, after a request to this effect from the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) to the following a crack discovered on a reactor at the Penly power station, said a source within the public electrician.
A spokesperson for the French group declined to comment on this information, indicating however that EDF would publicly present its new strategy “in the coming days”.
EDF, owner and operator of the 56 nuclear reactors in the French fleet, is facing increased pressure from ASN, which this week asked the group to revise its strategy for controlling corrosion problems at its power plants after the discovery of a major crack on a circuit of reactor number 1 at the Penly power plant.
It’s an added concern for the utility, which has spent most of the last year scrambling to fix welding flaws and other issues at various reactors, with output plummeting. to a 30-year low due to breakdowns and maintenance operations.
The president of the ASN was very critical of EDF’s procedures for welding when he spoke on nuclear safety on Wednesday before the Senate.
While he indicated that this was not a manufacturing defect inherent in all reactors of this model, as was the case for corrosion problems identified in the past, Bernard Doroszczuk declared that he had to make sure not to have any additional worries.
The ASN asked EDF to quickly identify “similar cases which could exist on the other reactors of the nuclear fleet, in order to be able to go and check these welds”, he said before the Senate Economic Affairs Committee.
EDF did not immediately comment on the welding operations.
Rather than forcing EDF to review its entire repair strategy for all of its nuclear fleet, the ASN has asked that the control of repairs made to welds be added to the list of the group’s obligations.
“This information raises at least new questions about the safety of the 6 reactors of the same P4 type which have not yet been inspected (or even about other reactors deemed to be less of a priority, the circuits of which may also have been the subject of operations realignment),” tweeted Yves Marignac, an energy consultant and nuclear critic at the Negawatt Institute think tank this week.
EDF still hopes to complete the repair work on the Penly 1 plant in time to restart it in early May.
This concern comes ahead of the Franco-British summit during which Paris and London are to announce a new partnership on nuclear energy. (Report America Hernandez, Benjamin Mallet and Forrest Crellin, French version Jean Terzian, edited by Matthieu Protard)
