the reactor is still six months late and 500 million euros more – Liberation

You are missing some welds and everything is postponed. EDF announces a further six-month delay for the commissioning of its EPR nuclear reactor in Flamanville (Manche), which now has to start by mid-2024 instead of the end of 2023, with a new additional cost of 500 million euros. The new delay is due to the necessary revision of the treatment procedures for approximately 150 welds «complex»inside the main secondary circuit of the reactor, explained to the press the director of the Flamanville 3 project, Alain Morvan.

These six additional months, which bring the delay with respect to the initially scheduled start date to twelve years, raise the total cost of the work, under construction since 2007, from 12.7 to 13.2 billion euros.

The problem arose this summer, when it was necessary to carry out heat treatment of “relaxation» of welds: the process used revealed a “behavioral non-compliance” sensitive equipment nearby, affected by excessively high temperatures, according to EDF.

“Last summer we stopped the heat treatments and resumed studies to define a method, and carried out tests to ensure the correct level of performance of these heat treatments”, adds Alain Morvan. “These files have been presented to Bureau Veritas, which analyzes them, and by the end of the year we will have the authorization to resume the so-called “complex” heat treatments.“, continues the project director.

Personnel and business retention

These operations should then be able to resume in early 2023, but the entire project schedule is disrupted: fuel loading is now announced for Q1 2024. Thus, the reactor will send its first electrons to the grid when it has reached almost 25% of its power, “about three months later”then by mid-2024, rather than end-2023 as previously planned.

The 500 million euros of additional costs are mainly related to keeping staff and companies on site, said the EDF manager.